Over $1m was paid by FBI to hack San Bernardino iPhone

Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey said on Thursday the agency paid more to get into the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters than he will make in the remaining seven years and four months he has in his job. According to figures from the FBI and the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Comey's annual salary as of January 2015 was $183,300. Without a raise or bonus, Comey will make $1.34 million over the remainder of his job. That suggests the FBI paid the largest ever publicized fee for a hacking job, easily surpassing the $1 million paid by U.S. information security company Zerodium to break into phones.
Presented the day before FBI experts were due to testify in the San Bernardino case, the new method brought the San Bernardino trial to an abrupt close, ending months of legal efforts to compel Apple’s help in unlocking the phone. Within a week, the method broke through the phone’s lock screen protections. Earlier this week, government officials told CNN that no new leads had resulted from the information found on the phone. The figure is only an estimate, but it’s consistent with both the FBI’s budget and the going rate for similar exploits.
Last year, an exploit broker known as Zerodium offered $1 million for a web-based exploit against iOS 9 — a bounty that was subsequently claimed.