Since last year, a lengthy case has been going on between Applema FBI, with a US federal court now ruling that the FBI doesn't have to release the company's name or the price it paid to unlock the iPhone 5C. The device belonged to gunman Syed Farook from San Bernardino, California, who shot and killed 2015 people and wounded 14 others in December 22 with his wife. The FBI suspected that the married couple had communicated with the Islamic State terrorist organization, so they wanted Apple to unlock the iPhone 5C, which was supposed to contain evidence and communications with the organization. Apple but then he flatly refused.
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The FBI reached out to Israel security company Cellebrite, which was able to bypass the iPhone's security systems. Three news organizations—the Associated Press, Vice News, and USA Today—wanted to find out under the Freedom of Information Act the price the FBI had to pay an outside firm for the hacking tool, and thus against the bureau filed a class action lawsuit.
Judge Tanya Chutkan said in Saturday's ruling that revealing such information would pose a great risk to the company that unlocked the device. According to the judge, the company does not have the same protection against cyber attacks as the FBI, so independent and state organizations could attack it to obtain the hacking tool. "It is logical and likely that a vendor would not have to protect its information as well in a cyber attack as the FBI," said the judge. For this reason, the FBI may not provide the detailed information that the trio of intelligence organizations requested.
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Apparently, the tool was only used to unlock the terrorist's iPhone, namely the iPhone 5C model with the iOS 9 operating system.
Former FBI Director James Comey and Senator Dianne Feinstein said a few months ago that the cost of unlocking an iPhone was around $1 million. However, the court ruled that the FBI doesn't even have to disclose the amount it paid for the hacking tool, so we won't even know the exact price.
source: ZDNet
Of course it's possible
They just tried a billion combinations :). It is definitely not impossible…
Probably not when it was set to erase the iPhone after the tenth wrong attempt :(