According to Reuters on October 3, the Berlin based security research laboratory (SRL) said on the same day that the vulnerability might allow criminals to have enough time to invade Apple phones, fully control mobile phone data, check e-mail accounts, and even take over the victim's bank account. SRL also claims to have found a new way to crack the iPhone fingerprint scanning function, and the new method is simpler than the previously exposed method. They posted a video demonstrating the new vulnerability on their website.

According to the report, if SRL's discovery is confirmed, it will become at least the fifth security vulnerability of iPhone and its iOS operating system exposed since July 2013. Apple has fixed some of the vulnerabilities, including the vulnerability that exposed at a summer hacker conference, which made mobile phones subject to eavesdropping.

Apple's "Find My iPhone" function is intended to thwart attempts by thieves and hackers. Users can log in to Apple's iCloud service to remotely delete their mobile phone data, which allows victims to deal with the information in the stolen mobile phone before criminals. The "Find My iPhone" function can also prevent criminals from logging into other accounts with stolen phones.

Ben Schrabbs, SRL's project manager in charge of biometric security, said that he had found a new way to prevent this function from being activated. Schrabbs successfully set an iPhone 5S phone in "airplane mode", so that iCloud could not contact the phone, and the "Find My iPhone" function could not be activated. This bought time for him to forge fingerprints and fool the fingerprint scanning function.