Israeli Company Can Crack Any Smartphone’s Password

Remember that FBI-Apple encryption dispute that dragged on earlier this year? Well apparently, there is an Israeli company that claims to be able to crack the password of any smartphone in use today. Incidentally, this was the same company that helped the FBI gain access to the data on the locked iPhone 5C that Apple refused to open. That right folks, the FBI turned to Cellebrite to unlock San Bernardino shooter Syed Farooks’ iPhone 5C. Mr. Yuval Ben-Moshe of Israel-based Cellebrite told the BBC that his firm could break into “the largest number of devices that are out there in the industry”. Not even the new iPhone 7 is safe. Mr. Ben-Moshe was pretty confident that they could hack an iPhone 7 too. According to the company’s website, “Cellebrite is the world leader in delivering cutting-edge mobile forensic solution”. Their Universal Forensic Extraction Device (UFED) can extract, decode, analyze, and report data from smartphones, tablets, portable GPS devices, and memory cards.

Cellebrite’s mobile forensics technology equipment consists of standalone devices, software based mobile devices, field operations devices, GPS units, and forensics software that detects communication and movement patterns. The procedure for extracting data is as simple as plugging a smartphone to the Cellebrite device and activating the software. A few button presses later, the phone is unlocked, and data can be extracted and analyzed. Cellebrite has clearly proven that smartphones and other devices can be hacked for the right reasons. But in the wrong hands no one’s privacy safe. We can only hope that companies continue to develop encryption technologies that keep user privacy protected one hack at a time.