The robot will try all possible 4-digit passwords on an iPhone.

Seen at Black Hat 2013.

Best Use I Can See

It’s not elegant, but it would work. Grab a phone off the street, return to a secure location, put it under the robot, wait.

You’d need a location though, and time. And it’d be a targeted attack; you’d be after the information on the phone, not the phone itself. Otherwise, just wipe it.

Defences

– turn OFF simple passcode. Then you can have a longer passcode, with alphanumeric characters
– turn ON “after 10 failed password attempts this iPhone will wipe itself”
– don’t use any of these – Most Common iPhone Passwords
– hang onto your phone tight, but not like this this

Sorry, that’s all I know; saw it en route to the car hacking talk.

So if this robot belongs to you, email me and I’ll link you up, and any explanation you’d like to add.