On Monday, 4/11, the Justice Department dropped the legal case they have been pursuing with Apple when the FBI was able to hack the iPhone of Syed Farook, the terrorist who took 14 lives in December in San Bernardino, California. When the Supreme Court ordered Apple to help the FBI crack the passcode of the iPhone, Apple resisted, fearing that it would jeopardize the future security in their products. The Justice Department released a statement in return claiming they had been reached out to by an anonymous third party who holds the ability to hack the iPhone without Apple’s help.

According to The New York Times, FBI investigators have started to look into the information encrypted on the phone, but have not yet publicly stated their findings. A law enforcement official reported that the hacking was assisted by a company outside of the government. Farook’s iPhone was a 5c operating on iOS 9, but security experts assume the secret behind the process of hacking the phone will not be a secret for long. Several foreign governments have also reportedly dedicated money to discovering the flaws in Apple technology security. Apple remarks, however, that with a matter of time and investigation, their security  engineers will be able to find the security flaw(s) and correct them, to create iOS 10.