FBI paid professional hackers one-time fee to crack San Bernardino iPhone

This is an automatic summary, original reduced by 75%.

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The FBI cracked a San Bernardino terrorist's phone with the help of professional hackers who discovered and brought to the bureau at least one previously unknown software flaw, according to people familiar with the matter.

The new information was then used to create a piece of hardware that helped the FBI to crack the iPhone's four-digit personal identification number without triggering a security feature that would have erased all the data, the individuals said.

The U.S. government now has to weigh whether to disclose the flaws to Apple, a decision that probably will be made by a White House-led group.

At least one of the people who helped the FBI in the San Bernardino case falls into a third category, often considered ethically murky: researchers who sell flaws - for instance, to governments or to companies that make surveillance tools.

Still, many security and privacy experts have been calling on the government to disclose the vulnerability data to Apple so that the firm can patch it.

In the case of the phone used by the San Bernardino terrorist, "You could make the justification on both national security and on law enforcement grounds because of the potential use by terrorists and other national security concerns," said a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity.

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