If you're up to date with any Apple , you've probably heard of Cellebrite, an Israeli company that appears to have been involved in the FBI's efforts to break into the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters.
Cellebrite is at this point the company behind the most advanced smartphone hacking software out there, no matter the brand, model, or security system used to block access to data, and it recently demonstrated how easy it is for it to hack a phone.
Cellebrite security researchers hacked an LG G4 running the latest version of Android in just a few seconds, managing to access the most recent photos, as well as the location and time for each file. They then extracted all the photos from the phone and transferred them to a computer, and the same was possible for any data or files on the device.
Cellebrite explains that they can access almost everything on your phone, not just files. For example, Leeor Ben-Peretz, one of the company's top executives, claims that the company can recover messages you deleted years ago, even if they no longer appear on the device.
"On some devices, even if you format the device and you think the data is erased, a significant portion of it is still there," Ben-Peretz said.
Is this worrying? It certainly is, especially since many companies, including Apple, market their products as nearly hackerproof and claim to invest millions of dollars to make your phones secure.
But Cellebrite says there's absolutely no reason to worry about this, since it's primarily done in collaboration with governments around the world to hack iPhones involved in criminal activity.
The company is believed to have been one of the companies involved in the San Bernardino iPhone case, where the FBI asked Apple to hack the criminal's phone and it refused, so the FBI seems to have looked for other alternatives to do so.
"iOS devices have strong security mechanisms that present us with a great challenge, but if someone can meet this challenge and offer a solution, they will definitely become a member of Cellebrite," the company said.
So the next time you brag that your phone can't be hacked, just remember that there's always someone out there who can prove you wrong..
