The Fbi And Nsa Are Paying Hackers On The 'gray Market' Millions To Help Them Unlock Phones

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images In 2017, the FBI was locked out of an estimated 1,000 to 2,000 devices. When it comes to cracking encrypted mobile devices, the FBI and NSA can seem as helpless as any regular citizen. Investigators are at the mercy of third-party hackers and companies who operate on the "gray market" — a marketplace offering zero-days and hacking services exclusively to government and corporate clients. The FBI paid about $1.3 million to an undisclosed gray-market company for an exploit that cracked a locked iPhone used by gunman Syed Farook in the San Bernardino, California, shooting. The FBI can shut down hundreds of online marketplaces on the dark web and identify web administrators on the internet anonymizing platform Tor.