What wrong with my IPhone?

So I broke my previous Iphone and mt friend was generous enough to give me her old one (Iphone 7plus) but I had to figure out her password because she forgot and then I could have it. So I didn't figure it out but I gave it to my OTHER friend to break into it cos she's good at that stuff and she only got so far that the Iphone restarted and i was pretty happy about that. The problem is, is that she only got so far and she said after she tried to get into it farther so that its restarted all the way but she could only get it to the screen that asks if you want to set up the phone manually. After setting it up (logging into Wi-Fi and choosing language ect.) It stops at the screen where it says
"Unable to Activate
An update is required to activate you Iphone
Learn more at hduwjfnsloxd"
And i tried to call and ask an apple employee but they just told me to ask my friend to go to iforgot.apple.com
but i no longer have connection with my friend that gave me the phone so i can't do this.
Is there any ways to fix this problem? I really don't want to buy another phone i got bills to pay

The Apple employee is right. That should have been done from the start. In fact she should have reset the phone herself before giving it to you.

I don't think there's anything that could be done now

It's bricked. If you had originally gotten your friend to contact Apple to retrieve the password you would have been okay. But since someone tried to hack it, it's bricked. It's now basically classified as stolen. If you and the original owner were to go together to an Apple store with proof that she's the legal owner, there's a chance they could help you. But at this point it's a brick thanks to someone trying to break in.

The reason she gave it to you is because she didn't have the password, which means it isn't usable because iphones have that security on it. I wouldnt be surprised if it wasn't really hers, because everyone knows you can't just forget this password. You aren't getting into it no matter if you think someone "is good at that stuff" because the people at Apple creating this are a 100 times more knowledgeable on this stuff then anyone else, and its made so you can't get around it.