I do not think that what we are going to tell you today is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, although I have added some allusion in the image that heads this post. The point is that the FBI has informed Apple of a vulnerability They had discovered that it affects older iPhones and Macs. This is the first time that the feds share information of this type with the Cupertino company and they have done so under the "Vulnerability Action Process" with the intention of revealing security weaknesses the moment they are discovered.
El Vulnerability Equities Process, the natural language name for this process, has been designed to balance the desire and intention of law enforcement and intelligence services in the United States to be able to hack devices and the public interest to warn companies from discovered vulnerabilities in their systems that could be exploited by criminals.
FBI Reveals Information ... About Old Devices
The vulnerability that the FBI has disclosed to Apple is not related to the famous iPhone 5c of the San Bernardino sniper. Law enforcement says they can't share that information because they don't have legal ownership of the method used to hack that iPhone. What they have revealed to Tim Cook and company is a vulnerability that affects old devices that in all probability will be used by a few percent testimonial.
The FBI says that share vulnerabilities when you can, which personally does not convince me (far from it). It is likely that the intention of the US law enforcement agencies is to look good, since their image has been damaged by the different fronts that they have open against privacy. On the other hand, I suppose they won't expect Apple to relax and start collaborating with the FBI after revealing this information to them.
The FBI informed Apple about the existence of this vulnerability on April 14 and all they have said is that It is already fixed in iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan. With this information we can only say that the affected devices they could be iPhone 4, original iPad, pre-2007 Macs, and compatible devices that have not been upgraded to a safe version. I say it could be because the fact that it is fixed in iOS 9 does not mean that it is not in iOS 8.4, for example. In the absence of a decision by Apple, we can only recommend updating to the latest version whenever possible (and don't be waiting for a jailbreak).