New security measure or bug? Massive iPhone reboots after confiscation baffle cops

Recently, it was reported that iPhones confiscated by the police in one of the US states began to reboot en masse after a day of inactivity or disconnection from the cellular network.

Here's What We Know

This phenomenon is observed on devices with iOS 18 and causes difficulties in forensic examinations. After rebooting, iPhones go into a BFU (Before First Unlock) state, making data extraction much more difficult, and after entering a passcode for the first time, the device goes into AFU (After First Unlock) mode, decrypting data and activating biometric authentication.

Law enforcement officials also report that the rebooted devices somehow send signals to other iPhones nearby, causing a similar reboot. It's not yet clear if this is a new iOS 18 security feature or a bug that has previously caused random reboots on some devices.

Apple is known for its measures to protect user data, and this behaviour could be part of those efforts. However, some experts believe it could simply be a bug fixed in the iOS 18.1 update. Regardless of the cause, the mass reboots are causing additional difficulties for law enforcement when trying to access data on confiscated devices.

Source: 404 Media