The FBI has announced that it has unlocked the phone of Thomas Matthew Crooks, the man who opened fire at a rally for presidential candidate Donald Trump on Saturday. A new report from Bloomberg reveals further details about this process and the phone used by Crooks.
After the shooting, the FBI initially said it was unable to unlock Crooks’ phone. The device was then sent to the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia, where the bureau confirmed Tuesday that it had unlocked the phone.
Bloomberg reports that the phone Crooks used was a “newer Samsung model running Android.” The FBI’s first attempt to unlock the phone, on Sunday, involved using Cellebrite software to bypass or identify the phone’s passcode.
When this first attempt failed, The FBI went directly to Cellebrite to get assistance. Cellebrite provided the FBI with “additional technical support and new software still in development.” With this new software, the FBI was able to unlock your phone in 40 minutes.
In a report published today, the Associated Press revealed that Crooks’ phone contained photos of the former Republican president, President Joe Biden and other officials. The FBI also found searches for “depressive disorder information” on the phone.
If the attacker had had an iPhone with iOS 17.4 or later, the FBI likely would not have been able to unlock it, since Cellebrite is not yet capable of performing this type of operation on the latest versions of Apple’s operating system.
Cellebrite’s ability to quickly unlock Crooks’ phone demonstrates that despite efforts by companies like Apple and Google to improve security, there are still tools being developed that can overcome these barriers. However, Cellebrite’s difficulty working with the latest versions of iOS also highlights the significant progress that has been made in the field of cybersecurity.
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Source: www.iphoneitalia.com
