The FBI may have paid a small fortune to unlock an iPhone 5c used by the San Bernardino shooter. But a security researcher has demonstrated a way to do it for less than $100.

Sergei Skorobogatov at the University of Cambridge used a technique known as NAND mirroring to bypass the passcode-retry limit on an iPhone 5c. Using store-bought equipment, he created copies of the phone’s flash memory to generate more tries to guess the passcode.  

Skorobogatov detailed the whole process in a new paper that disputes the FBI’s assertion that the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone couldn’t be accessed with the NAND mirroring technique.  

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