Police Can Unlock Any iPhone With Cellebrite’s New Tool
It used to be trivially easy for police to scoop up all the private data on cell phones seized in the course of an investigation. The era of smartphones brought new challenges and new opportunities for investigators. While smartphones contain so much more information than the flip phones of yesteryear, they’re also much harder to access without a password. Several companies offer device unlocking services to law enforcement, but they’re limited by devices and software versions. Israeli forensics firm Cellebrite says it can free up the data on any iOS device up to the latest v12.3.
The new iPhone cracking capabilities come by way of a new version of the company’s Universal Forensic Extraction Device or UFED. Cellebrite calls the new UFED Premium an “exclusive solution for law enforcement.” Investigators can purchase the device and use it to perform data backups from locked smartphones. Without something like the UFED, getting a warrant to copy a phone’s contents won’t do police any good when the device in question is locked and encrypted. There’s also some concern these devices could end up in the hands of criminals.
Apple just released iOS 12.3 a month ago, so Cellebrite must have gotten its hands on a very sensitive vulnerability in the software if it’s capable of unlocking any device. Odds are Cellebrite paid an arm and a leg to some security researcher for the exploit, and now it’ll leverage it to make money from governments and law enforcement until Apple can discover how the UFED Premium works.
Cellebrite also claims UFED Premium can extract data from a number of popular Android phones like the Galaxy S series up through the S9, as well as phones from LG, Huawei, and Xiaomi. That suggests it has found manufacturer-specific flaws and not something that affects all Android devices. So, that’s at least one bit of good news.
Cellebrite is proud to introduce #UFED Premium! An exclusive solution for law enforcement to unlock and extract data from all iOS and high-end Android devices. To learn more, click here: https://t.co/WHsaDxzoXz pic.twitter.com/BSixEkyAuL
— Cellebrite (@Cellebrite_UFED) June 14, 2019
This isn’t the first time Apple has been faced with a phone cracking problem. Another security firm called Grayshift made a business out of selling its GrayKey phone unlocking station. It used custom software to brute force Apple PIN codes, but Apple mitigated the usefulness of the GrayKey by disabling data on the Lightning port when devices were locked and idle. It’s unclear if this technique can stop UFED Premium, but it sounds like not.
Apple will inevitably block UFED Premium, but the company probably chose this moment to announce because v12.3 just launched. Cellebrite likely figures it has some time to sell devices and unlocking services before they become useless.
Continue reading
Sony Will Unlock the PS5’s Expandable Storage by This Summer
The PlayStation 5 will finally be able to boost its internal capacity this summer, with M.2 drive support arriving along with new fan profile updates.
Alder Lake Extravaganza: Intel Unloads Details on its Next-Gen CPU
Intel's desktop CPUs have been stuck on 14nm for over six years now, and the cracks in that process node have been showing for at least two. The manufacturer was finally ready to share details on Alder Lake, Gracemont, and Golden Cove with us, and it had a lot to talk about.
Samsung Breaks the Galaxy Z Fold3’s Cameras If You Unlock the Bootloader
Unlocking allows you to root a phone and make changes to the core software. Naturally, most device makers discourage this behavior, but Samsung's setup on the Fold3 is downright hostile to modders.
Oculus Gives Discontinued Oculus Go a New Lease on Life with Unlocked Software
The release of the Oculus Go in 2018 was an important step for Facebook's Virtual Reality division, but the product was short-lived. After being made obsolete by the Oculus Quest, the company discontinued the Go in 2020. Still, Facebook sold millions of the standalone headsets, and now they're more capable thanks to an unlocked software update.