(Screenshot: ZDNet)
There's a new twist in the long-running cat-and-mouse game between Apple and law enforcement.
A new feature, which first emerged in an early beta version of the company's iPhone and iPad software but never made it to market, has finally been released.
The latest version of the iPhone and iPad software, iOS 11.4.1, includes a new feature that requires users to unlock their device after an hour of inactivity to connect a USB accessory.
That's meant to make it more difficult for police -- and hackers -- to siphon all the data off a user's device.
The feature, called USB Restricted Mode, was first found in a beta version of iOS 11.3 in March, shortly after a new iPhone unlocking tool hit the market -- a device called GrayKey[1], which promises to help law enforcement unlock iPhones in a fraction of the time it usually takes.
The box, small enough to fit in your hand, uses an as-of-yet-unknown exploit that guesses the device's password again and again -- an attack known as brute-forcing -- to gain access to the iPhone's encrypted contents.
Apple introduced its so-called "zero-knowledge encryption" feature in iOS 8 in 2014, meaning only the device owner, and not Apple, can unlock the phone.
Law enforcement have long complained that they need access to locked devices to help with their investigations. But security experts have decried efforts[2] by the government to lobby for backdoors, arguing that hackers could also get that same access and use it for their own gain.
The new feature doesn't require a code to recharge a device's battery.
It's the latest move in Apple's