FBI ‘cracks San Bernardino gunman’s iPhone without help from Apple’

The FBI has succeeded in unlocking the iPhone used by the San Bernardino gunman — without any help from Apple, US officials say.

The US justice department has now dropped its legal case against the tech giant after using an undisclosed technique to access the device.

Apple had resisted a court order telling it to write new software which would allow investigators to access Syed Rizwan Farook’s passcode-locked iPhone.

The justice department made the announcement last night after weeks of saying Apple possessed the “exclusive technical means” to break into the device.

The FBI would not comment on its method, saying it had undertaken “a full exploitation of the phone and follow-up investigative steps are continuing.”

Eileen Decker, the top federal prosecutor in California, said investigators had received the help of “a third party”, but did not specify who that was.

Last week an Israeli newspaper reported that experts at cybersecurity firm Cellebrite were working on the case.

Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik killed 14 people and wounded 22 at a Christmas party in Calfornia on December 2, before being shot dead by police. Investigators have been examining to what extent the couple communicated with Islamist groups.

They had pledged allegiance to Islamic State on social media on the day of the massacre.

The FBI claims Farook’s phone contains crucial information, but Apple said creating a backdoor in its operating system would threaten customers’ security.

A court hearing with Apple has been postponed at the request of the justice department, which said the FBI had “successfully accessed the data stored on Farook’s iPhone and therefore no longer requires assistance from Apple”.

Cellebrite would not comment but its website states that one of its specialist tools extracts and decodes data from a locked iPhone 5C.