The Battle for Your Computer

CHAPTER 10Reaching Through the Darkness: NSO and Zero‐Click Disruption

Christmas in San Bernardino should have ended differently.

On the morning of December 2, 2015, the community center of one of California's biggest cities was the venue of a Christmas party. Inside, enjoying the celebrations, were some 80 employees of San Bernardino's Department of Public Health. Suddenly, a man and a woman armed with rifles burst onto the scene and started indiscriminately shooting everywhere. The man, Syed Farook, worked as an environment and food safety inspector in the department and was a colleague of everyone there. Fourteen people were murdered in the attack, over 20 were injured, and the shooters escaped the scene.

The police launched a manhunt and tracked down the duo's vehicle around four hours later. The assailants opened fire at the police officers, wounding two of them; after a brief spate of gunfire, the shooters were shot and killed. The police investigation, launched immediately that day, found that the woman, Pakistani‐born Tashfeen Malik, holder of a Green Card, had sworn allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) before embarking on this murderous rampage. The pair had also managed to do something else before the attack: they destroyed their cell phones.

During the investigation, a federal detective managed to get his hands on Farook's work iPhone, which hopefully would provide priceless information about anyone he had been in contact with, including potential ...