In a recent fascinating story about technology and investigations, the FBI demonstrated how advanced digital forensics technology has become with mobile devices. According to reports published by The Washington Post and Bloomberg, FBI agents managed to hack, in record time, the phone of the person who wanted to shoot former President Donald Trump. How and how long did it take? Find out below.
What phone did the attacker use and how was it hacked?
Although Thomas Matthew Crooks, the attacker of Donald Trump, was annihilated by the American secret services, his phone survived. The device is a high-end Samsung rumored to be the Galaxy S24, S24+, S24 Ultra, A05, A15 or A25.
Initially, the FBI tried to open it in the Pittsburgh crime lab with a tool from Cellebrite. It didn’t work, so they sent it to the Virginia office. There they used another software, from the same company, but which is not yet available to the general public. Cellebrite is an Israeli digital intelligence company that provides, among other things, tools for federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.
The FBI unlocked the phone in less than 1 hour
Back to the second tool: with its help, the FBI was able to access the attacker’s phone in just 40 minutes. After opening it, they found, in addition to information about former President Trump’s public appearances, several pictures. Main subjects: current US president, Joe Biden, and other important officials. It also appears that Thomas Matthew Crooks had sought information about major depressive disorder, but also details about the FBI director and America’s attorney general.
The FBI also revealed that they also found a Steam profile that allegedly belonged to Crooks. There, he allegedly wrote a threatening message before the attack: “July 13th will be my debut, watch it unfold.” Investigators handling the case came back and said the profile was a fake.
Limitations of Cellebrite tools
Some documents leaked online tell us that current Cellebrite tools cannot unlock iPhones running iOS 17.4 and later. The Supersonic Brute Force feature, for example, only works on iPhone XR and 11 with iOS 17.1 to 17.3.
Source: The Verge
Source: www.go4it.ro
