After the unsuccessful attempt by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crookes to assassinate Trump last weekend, the FBI publicly announced on Monday that it had successfully cracked the assassin's smartphone. According to multiple US media outlets, there is a hidden piece of information behind this news - US federal law enforcement officers were forced to use "undisclosed new technology" to crack smartphones.
This trend also reflects the significant breakthroughs made by current mobile device forensics software, as well as the game between law enforcement agencies, "crackers", and mobile system developers.
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It is reported that after the sniper of the Secret Service killed Crookes last week, investigators found a "new Samsung smartphone" on him. The FBI Pittsburgh office, which was the first to receive the evidence, found it impossible to crack and sent the phone to the FBI Academy laboratory in Quantico, Virginia the next day.
In the laboratory, agents use a mobile password cracking tool developed by Israeli digital intelligence company Cellebrite. Cellebrite's software has multiple methods to crack passwords, including disabling the built-in mechanism on the phone to prevent repeated password attempts, and generating millions of passwords to force cracking.
But it is said that due to the relatively new style of Crookes' phone, the publicly available software is not compatible.
As a reference, according to an internal Cellebrite document released by the media earlier, the Cellebrite tools currently available on the market cannot crack iOS 17.4 or later versions of phones, as well as Google Pixel 6, 7, and 8 phones that are turned off.
Faced with the pressure to submit search results as soon as possible, the FBI directly sought help from Cellebrite, and within hours, they obtained a set of "new software under development". According to reports, the FBI unlocked Crookes' phone in less than 40 minutes using this new software.
Of course, the unlocked phone did not provide much effective information. According to informed sources, although there are some traceable clues in the information on the phone, there are no clues related to criminal motives, criminal plans, or accomplices.
At a briefing with members of Congress on Wednesday, the FBI revealed that Crookes had searched his phone for the dates of Trump's public appearance, the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and a series of well-known political figures including the FBI director and the Attorney General.
Cellebrite is also a publicly listed company
As a globally renowned "mobile cracking" software provider, Cellebrite listed on the NASDAQ exchange through SPAC trading in 2021. Due to the increasing demand for "cracking mobile phones" from global law enforcement agencies, Cellebrite's revenue has been steadily increasing, and its stock price has tripled in the past year and a half.
(Cellebrite daily chart, source: TradingView)
According to the financial report, Cellebrite achieved a revenue of $89.6 million in the first quarter of this year and handled "over 5 million cases" as a result. The company also issued a statement this week stating that it is seeking to expand its business with federal clients in the United States.