Infosec in Brief Unable to access the Samsung smartphone of the deceased Trump shooter for clues, the FBI turned to a familiar—if controversial—source to achieve its goal: digital forensics tools provider Cellebrite.
How the FBI Hacked the Trump Shooter's Phone
Cellebrite has been used for years by law enforcement agencies to break into locked smartphones. In this case, the shooter's device was a newer model, rendering their existing Cellebrite system unusable. Undeterred, the police called Cellebrite's support team and the vendor quickly delivered an updated version of their software.
The unreleased software, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter, cracked the phone within 40 minutes.
Cracking devices in this way is not welcomed by manufacturers, who have long resisted government and law enforcement's desire to weaken encryption on devices. Apple famously met with the US attorney general in early 2020, refusing to give the FBI access to a mass shooter's device because it would require Apple to develop a backdoor that would inevitably find its way into the darker corners of the internet.
