The FBI has all but concluded that there's nothing to tell Apple about a vulnerability that was exploited to unlock a phone left behind by San Bernardino terrorist Syed Farook, federal officials said Tuesday, because investigators don't know what it was, NBC News reported.
Using an idea proposed by a so-far unidentified third party, the FBI was able to defeat the phone's security features earlier this month and extract data stored on the device.
Normally, when the federal government discovers vulnerabilities in devices or software, it notifies the companies involved.
But FBI Director James Comey said at a cybersecurity conference Tuesday that the government must determine whether investigators actually know what the weak point was in Farook's iPhone, or whether they simply used what was provided by the third party to open the phone.