- Dec 30, 2012
- 4,809
Cellebrite, an Israeli company that specialises in digital forensics, has dominated the market in helping law enforcement access mobile phones. But one apparent reseller of the company's products is publicly distributing copies of Cellebrite firmware and software for anyone to download.
Although Cellebrite keeps it most sensitive capabilities in-house, the leak may still give researchers, or competitors, a chance to figure out how Cellebrite breaks into and analyzes phones by reverse-engineering the files.
The apparent reseller distributing the files is McSira Professional Solutions, which, according to its website, “is pleased to serve police, military and security agencies in the E.U. And [sic] in other parts of the world.”
McSira is hosting software for various versions of Cellebrite's Universal Forensic Extraction Device (UFED), hardware that investigators can use to bypass the security mechanisms of phones, and then extract data from them. McSira allows anyone to download firmware for the UFED Touch, and a PC version called UFED 4PC. It is also hosting pieces of Cellebrite forensic software, such as the UFED Cloud Analyzer. This allows investigators to further scrutinize seized data.
Cellebrite's UFED devices are unable to bypass the passcode lock on a number of recent iPhone iterations, including the iPhone 5C, 6, and 7, according to a spreadsheet published by the company. Cellebrite can analyze BlackBerrys and a wide range of Android devices, however.
Although Cellebrite keeps it most sensitive capabilities in-house, the leak may still give researchers, or competitors, a chance to figure out how Cellebrite breaks into and analyzes phones by reverse-engineering the files.
The apparent reseller distributing the files is McSira Professional Solutions, which, according to its website, “is pleased to serve police, military and security agencies in the E.U. And [sic] in other parts of the world.”
McSira is hosting software for various versions of Cellebrite's Universal Forensic Extraction Device (UFED), hardware that investigators can use to bypass the security mechanisms of phones, and then extract data from them. McSira allows anyone to download firmware for the UFED Touch, and a PC version called UFED 4PC. It is also hosting pieces of Cellebrite forensic software, such as the UFED Cloud Analyzer. This allows investigators to further scrutinize seized data.
Cellebrite's UFED devices are unable to bypass the passcode lock on a number of recent iPhone iterations, including the iPhone 5C, 6, and 7, according to a spreadsheet published by the company. Cellebrite can analyze BlackBerrys and a wide range of Android devices, however.
