The FBI has been one of the biggest proponents of backdoors in devices like smartphones and tablets , and Director Christopher Wray, in his speech at the International Cyber Security Conference in New York, emphasized how difficult it is for the agency to crack encrypted systems.
Wray revealed that the FBI has in its possession more than 7,775 encrypted devices that it wants but cannot hack because it lacks the necessary expertise to do so.
In other words, these devices were involved in various investigations and it was shown that they can store information that could help FBI agents in the fight against criminals, but this information cannot be extracted due to strong encryption.
"The lack of access to these devices is a significant public safety issue and impacts our investigations as a whole," he said. He went on to emphasize the seriousness of the problem, which requires a careful and rational approach. He also said that assistance from the private sector is of paramount importance.
Wray also cited a number of cases where investigations cannot proceed because of encrypted devices, including human trafficking, counterterrorism, organized crime and child exploitation.
Wray called on tech companies to help find a solution to deal with this strong encryption, essentially asking for a backdoor that would allow only authorized people to access the data stored on these devices if they really need to. Obviously, there's no guarantee that these backdoors won't end up in the hands of cybercriminals, which is one reason the tech industry has so far resisted such proposals.
