Federal investigators are analyzing device’s content, although it is unclear how agency gained access
The FBI has gained access to the phone of the suspected gunman who opened fire on Donald Trump’s rally and is analyzing the device’s contents, the agency stated in a press release on Monday afternoon. The shooting, which killed one audience member and left Trump bleeding from one ear, is being investigated as an assassination attempt.
Authorities have been working to determine the motive behind the attack at Trump’s campaign rally on Saturday, but no clear picture has yet emerged. The gunman, identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks by the FBI, was shot and killed in the incident.
Federal investigators announced on Sunday that they had obtained Crooks’s cellphone, but had issues with bypassing its password protections to access the data within. FBI investigators then shipped the phone to a lab in Virginia, where agents successfully gained access, per the bureau’s press release.
Yes, it does, if they have full access to the disassembled hardware and assuming research time & resources they could do practically anything. Such as emulating the Secure Enclave chip with a “fraudulent” version, changing all firmware running on any semiconductors in the phone, isolating storage, I don’t know the details, but let your imagination loose.
Physical, uninterrupted access is unlikely, yet bad news for anyone’s threat model.
not only physical access, but the authority to get any information necessary from the manufacturers of every component in the device. there is no question to them how any component operates, from silicon to software.