The Israeli company Cellebrite has announced the updated version of its tool, by using which the law enforcement agencies can hack into Apple devices running iOS. The product name is UFED Premium.
Cellebrite claims on its official site that UFED Premium is the one-of-a-kind invention that allows unlocking any gadgets from the iOS version 7 to the latest iOS 12.3, released in May 2019. The Cellebrite product enables police and intelligence agencies to access data on the iPhone, including messenger correspondence, emails, and even the deleted files. Plus, Cellebrite creators assure that their development allows hacking the latest models of Android smartphones.
Unlike all previous versions, UFED Premium will be sold to the departments as a "local" tool. It will probably be a sort of a small device or a set of programs that will support the police and intelligence services to bypass the smartphone protection of the suspected. The Cellebrite company worried that Apple could close the iOS vulnerabilities and demanded to send smartphones to the office where they were unlocked and sent back to the customer. In February 2018, the cost for hacking a device was $1,500.
Moreover, other software engineers offer services similar to Cellebrite. For instance, at the end of the last year, American company DriveSavers launched a service to hack iPhone smartphones for $3,900 for all customers. The service called Passcode Lockout Data Recovery provides data recovery from a variety of devices, as well as Apple smartphones. To unlock a tablet, laptop, or smartphone, the user needs to send the device to the company office together with confirmation of the gadget ownership. The service is designed for ordinary users, and not for the police, special services, or private detectives.
