Apple claims that with iOS 18, iPhones have apparently been made secure, but it had its strange and unintended side effect: under certain conditions, locked iPhones will just reboot.

That will be a problem for the law enforcement units that have seized these devices. So let's break it down: how exactly do iPhones work under iOS encryption and what impact might this security feature cause?

How iPhones Secure Your Data

iPhone

Well, Apple's take on privacy and security is, in many ways, one of the defining features of its smartphones. And with the iPhone, two explicit states - Before First Unlock (BFU) and After First Unlock (AFU) - govern how open an encrypted device will be, locked or otherwise.

BFU is essentially the 'true' state of encrypting the whole iPhone; nothing can breach and extract sensitive data from this. It is only after a first unlock that the phone jumps into the AFU, where biometric features - Face ID or Touch ID - are activated, decrypting the data on a device for easier access.

According to a new report by 404 Media, iPhones with iOS 18 may automatically reboot in case they have gone idle or lost cellular networks. Reportedly, police officers are warning their fellows that this new aspect seems to make it more challenging to access the stored data. Any time an iPhone reboots, it returns to the state of BFU and the data stays encrypted-a lot more inaccessible.

Moreover, this issue is not restricted to only the device being analyzed. Hence, some iPhone devices in AFU have been found to reset other devices nearby, and this makes forensic work even harder; this behavior has alarmed law enforcers as it 'locks' the device putting it in a more secure mode that no longer allows data extraction even after the device has been confiscated.

Was it a Bug or a New Feature?

This new feature might be a result of a bug, which Apple inadvertently presented in this update, or it could be a purposeful feature Apple designed to boost security.

Initially, many iPhones experiencing the iOS 18.0 started rebooting randomly during the day, and that problem was fixed in the update to iOS 18.1. Some think this might be the reason for the behavior seen in the confiscated devices or just a bug and not a security measure.

While it is uncertain if the rebooting problem was caused by a bug or a new privacy feature, the effect is there. If law enforcement officials cannot stop iPhones from restarting into the BFU state, the case of delayed criminal investigations and the inability to retrieve evidence from locked devices would be enhanced.

How it Can Impact Crime Investigations

For law enforcement agencies, it is a real stumbling block when their authorities are stripped of access to a significant amount of information on a seized device. Smartphones often undergo digital forensic analysis in crime investigations as needed for text messages, emails, photos, and data on applications found on a person's smartphone.

In case Apple's iOS 18 carries more new security measures that make this process even more difficult, it will perhaps delay or derail investigations sometimes.

Although secrecy with regard to the user forms a significant point of advantage for Apple products, this may equally present an additional difficulty to law enforcement as most crimes are prosecuted through electronic evidence.

While this is so, privacy advocates assert that the security features are essential for protecting consumers against unwanted snooping and hacking into their devices.

With iOS 18 coming out and further upgrades to the system, Apple can be expected to tighten its security measures. The new challenge would be to appropriately balance the protection of user privacy with the legitimized capacity of authorized parties, such as law enforcement, to access data in instances when that may be legally necessary.

For now, it is unknown whether the rebooting issue will persist or will be resolved, but one thing is certain: iPhones are more secure than ever and even harder to crack open.