Mysterious iPhone Auto-Restart Is a New Security Feature

Apple strengthened the security of its iPhones, without saying anything, in iOS 18.1. The mysterious automatic reboot of the device is actually a new security mechanism aimed at making unlocking them more complicated.

Apple has integrated a new security mechanism on its iPhones running iOS 18.1. The information is now confirmed, while in the United States, police officers suspected Apple last week of having put in place a new system to make the search of iPhones more difficult.

iOS 18.1 strengthens iPhone security

After a certain period of inactivity, iPhones that have not been unlocked will restart automatically. According to 404 Mediawhich revealed the affair, this inactivity restart would occur automatically as soon as an iPhone is left unused for a period of four days.

Information confirmed by the security researcher Jiska classes indicated on his Twitter / And, contrary to what was initially believed, this new mechanism is not at all linked to whether the iPhone is connected to the network or not.

https://x.com/naehrdine/status/1854896392797360484

Asked by 404 Media, Christopher Vanceforensic specialist at Magnet Forensicsa software publisher specializing in digital survey tools, indicated that “ the restart timer is not linked to any network or charging function, but only linked to device inactivity since the last lock ».

A new impenetrable lock to access iPhone data

If this new security measure is rather good news for users, it does not make the police laugh. Because this new security mechanism turns out to be quite problematic for them.

The data contained in iPhones that the police store as part of legal investigations is in fact almost impossible to extract after this automatic restart. For what ? Quite simply because after a restart, the iPhone enters BFU mode (for “Before First Unlock”), a state in which the data stored on the device is encrypted, and therefore ultra-protected.

Without proper unlocking by the legitimate owner of the device, so that it enters AFU mode (for “after first unlock”), the data remains encrypted. And at present, none of the tools used by the police are able to bypass this new lock put in place by Apple to extract data from the device.