Does anybody know what happens with third party apps on iPhones after the device has been untouched/powered off for a long time?
As many I'm sure are familiar with, when a phone is seized it could be weeks or even months before it actually reaches an examiner's desk. When it's a new iPhone it could even be years before a hack is discovered to break into it. So I should think many are familiar with an iPhone that either hasn't been signed in, or been powered off for a very long time.
I've got an iPhone that was kept off for years, now we can get into it all of the native apps can be acquired with ease. However most of the third party apps appear to have been set to 'inactive' and require the itunes password to access, I'm not even able to acquire the app data at all with a logical.
Does anybody know anything about this apparent 'time lock' on third party apps?
I had this problem before too. Somebody from a developer community told me that the problem is caused by corrupt timestamps, because the device date is reset to 1970 if the phone is kept discharged for a very long time.
I had this issue on an old iPhone 4, without SE. The suggestion was to make a physical dump of the device in DFU mode, before starting the phone in normal mode, then all the timestamps should be preserved in their original last state and analyzing apps should be also possible.
What is the best practice in similar cases for devices with Secure Enclave ?
Thanks for sharing.
That could very well be the cause, as this is also an iPhone 4 and was indeed kept switched off for a long time - but I thought most people would have seen this since seized devices are usually kept locked away for long periods.
Can anyone confirm does this affect newer models than the iPhone 4 on more recent iOS versions?
Also when you say discharged do you mean battery run flat, or simply powered off?
I don't know if the device was shot off or it was kept in airplane mode and it discharged like that. The device was off for a very long time at LE warehouse. The only sure thing is that battery totally drained, it didn't even charge for a few hours at all, then at some point it started charging.
I didn't have this kind of experience with newer devices, because I got none in this "drained to death" state for analysis, but I'm pretty sure that corrupt timestamps can be a source of problems in any iOS.
I don't know if the device was shot off or it was kept in airplane mode and it discharged like that. The device was off for a very long time at LE warehouse. The only sure thing is that battery totally drained, it didn't even charge for a few hours at all, then at some point it started charging.
I didn't have this kind of experience with newer devices, because I got none in this "drained to death" state for analysis, but I'm pretty sure that corrupt timestamps can be a source of problems in any iOS.
Approximately how long would you estimate it sat off for? I think mine was for about a year…
I checked the case files, that phone was off for 301 or 302 days. Not a full year, but around 10 months in some LE warehouse on a shelf it is still a lot )