DriveSavers Offers Phone Unlocking and Data Recovery for $3,900
Law enforcement has been stuck paying exorbitant prices to get confiscated phones unlocked by security firms, but now you too can be gouged for access to that encrypted data. DriveSavers has announced a new service to unlock your iPhone or Android device, and all it’ll cost you is $3,900. The price might not sound so crazy if the data in your phone is extremely important, and it’s not like you have a lot of options.
According to DriveSavers, this is a proprietary technology that can bypass the security on a phone, no matter how long the password may be. That’s useful for devices to which you don’t know the password or those that have been locked after too many failed unlock attempts. Modern phones encrypt the internal storage, so there’s no way you as a consumer can salvage anything without the passcode.
The company offers to back up the data present on your device after unlocking it. So, you’d get the phone and an external drive with all your photos, videos, documents, and so on. However, you also get the phone back, unlocked and fully functional with the data intact. That suggests DriveSavers has obtained some serious zero-day exploits for a variety of mobile devices.
In the past, we’ve seen police and governments purchase the GrayKey box, which can crack iPhone passcodes using a secret process. Grayshift sells the boxes for as much s $30,000 if you want unlimited usage. Apple has worked to block these attacks with features like USB Restricted Mode. It’s unclear how successful it’s been, but such a measure should also make things more difficult for DriveSavers. Still, it claims to have a 100 percent success rate.
On the Android side, DriveSavers says it can unlock devices from Samsung, Huawei, Lenovo, Xiaomi, LG, ZTE, and Oppo. Either DriveSavers has exploits for all these device makers individually, or it has a core Android flaw that works on all phones. It also unlocks Windows and BlackBerry devices.
DriveSavers stresses that this service is only available to the legal owner of a phone. It requires documentation to prove that you’re not attempting to gain access to a stolen phone, and the service is not available to law enforcement or governments. If you need to access the device of a deceased family member, DriveSavers will need items like a death certificate and court documents. It will also ask for additional verification in the event its engineers notice a discrepancy between what’s on the phone and what you claimed would be there.
So, it’s not as simple as forking over the cash and getting the data. If you’re ever in a position to make an enemy of someone with $3,900, you’ll probably appreciate the attention to detail.
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