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After the FBI raided a Washington Post reporter’s home and seized multiple devicesLockdown Mode prevented them from accessing her iPhone. Here are the details.

FBI unable to access data from reporter’s iPhone

As reported by 404 Mediathe FBI raided the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson earlier this year“as part of an investigation into leaks of classified information.”

Natanson’s profile page on The Washington Post’s website states that she has been “covering Trump’s reshaping of the federal government and its effects,” and that “was part of a team of Post journalists awarded the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for coverage of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.”

During the FBI’s raid last Januaryagents seized multiple electronic devices at Natanson’s homeincluding a MacBook Pro and an iPhone 13.

Howeverthe FBI’s Computer Analysis Response Team (CART) was unable to extract data from the iPhone thanks to the system’s Lockdown Modewhich “helps protect devices against extremely rare and highly sophisticated cyber attacks,” per Apple’s description.

Here’s 404 Media:

“Because the iPhone was in Lockdown modeCART could not extract that device,” the court record readsreferring to the FBI’s Computer Analysis Response Teama unit focused on performing forensic analyses of seized devices. The document is written by the governmentand is opposing the return of Natanson’s devices.

And

The court record mentioning Lockdown Mode was filed on January 30tharound two weeks after the FBI raided Natanson’s residenceindicating the FBI has not been able to access the iPhone during that time.

In practicethis means thatup until the report was filedCART hadn’t managed to exfiltrate data because of the iPhone’s Lockdown Modebut it’s impossible to know whether they have since been able to access the device.

More on Lockdown Mode

Here’s how Apple explains this featurewhich is available in iOS 16 or lateriPadOS 16 or laterwatchOS 10 or laterand macOS Ventura or later:

Lockdown Mode is an optionalextreme protection that’s designed for the very few individuals whobecause of who they are or what they domight be personally targeted by some of the most sophisticated digital threats. Most people are never targeted by attacks of this nature.
When Lockdown Mode is enabledyour device won’t function like it typically does. To reduce the attack surface that potentially could be exploited by highly targeted mercenary spywarecertain appswebsitesand features are strictly limited for security and some experiences might not be available at all.

Lockdown Mode limits a wide range of system features and connectionsincluding blocking most message attachmentsrestricting certain web browsing technologieslimiting FaceTime calls from unknown contactspreventing device connections unless the device is unlockedand turning off configuration profiles and device management enrollment.

To learn more about Lockdown Modefollow this link.