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The truth behind that iPhone security glitch that's currently going viral

Passcode bypass has been spreading around the internet

The truth behind that iPhone security glitch that's currently going viral
07 March 2016

Despite all the fuss that the FBI have been making about gaining access to Apple's iPhones, it seemed that they were making a fuss about nothing - all they really needed to do watch a 36 second YouTube video instead.

The clip, created by SocialStar and shown above, appeared to show a fiendishly simple hack enabling a user to bypass the iPhone's passcode function, simply by asking Siri to tell them the time, moving to the alarm screen, and then attempting to buy a new Alarm Tone. By then backing out of the Ringtone store, they were returned to the homescreen.

However, from our own (strictly scientific) testing and insight from a multitude of commenters, we can confirm that the 'hack' is really a fake, most likely created by setting the phone to not require the passcode immediately (which is available on iOS 8 and earlier) or, more likely, because using your thumb to access Siri will also authenticate the user via Touch ID, even though it doesn't flag up that this has happened.

However, it's a neat party trick - if your parties really aren't that exciting.