Apple Just Made a Powerful Statement That Affects Your Cyber Security

A California judge ruled Apple must help the FBI break into an iPhone belonging to San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook, USA Today reports. After the ruling, Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote an open letter to customers explaining why the order "threatens the security" of all iPhone users and "has implications far beyond the legal case at hand."

The FBI wants Apple to create technology the would disable the security feature on an iPhone that only allows a certain number of attempts to unlock the phone's passcode before all its data is deleted. Because of this feature, the FBI can't begin attempting to unlock the phone without running the risk of losing everything on it forever. They accessed Farook's iCloud, but believe he turned the backup function off sometime around Oct. 19, more than a month and a half before the attack, ABC News reports.

Cook's letter states Apple has cooperated with the FBI as much as possible to this point. All non-encrypted, accessible information, they have provided, he explained.

We have great respect for the professionals at the FBI, and we believe their intentions are good. Up to this point, we have done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help them. But now the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone.

Cook specified that while the FBI is only demanding this capability for this specific case, there is no turning back when it comes to creating this kind of technology: "Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices … It would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks … No reasonable person would find that acceptable." 

He also wrote Apple could find no legal precedent for this case, adding to his discomfort in providing the technology. "Ultimately, we fear that this demand would undermine the very freedoms and liberty our government is meant to protect," he concluded. 

NPR confirms this is a "first-of-its-kind" ruling and that if Apple refuses to cooperate, the federal investigators who are struggling to unlock the phone could still hack it with the help of the NSA and CIA.

Follow Tess on Twitter.​