Russian Company Releases iPhone Password Breaker

[Michael Essany]

Elcomsoft, a Russian firm known for its "password cracking" savvy, is out with new software that helps iPhone users determine the password used to encrypt backed-up iPhone data. Featuring the company’s GPU acceleration technology, Elcomsoft's "Password Breaker" enables "forensic access" to password-protected backups for iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad, and iPod Touch 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Gen devices. According to Elcomsoft, this is the first comparable iPhone/iPod password recovery tool on the market.

The new tool recovers the original plain-text password that protects encrypted backups containing address books, call logs, SMS archives, calendars, camera snapshots, voice mail and email account settings, applications, Web browsing history and cache.

The software, which also lets you read and decrypt keychain data (email account passwords, Wi-Fi passwords, and passwords you enter into websites and some other applications), is particularly useful in the new era of iOS. Prior to the release of iOS 4, the company reminds us, keychains remained encrypted with a device-specific hardware key, but with the release of Apple iOS4, "the keychains are stored encrypted only with backup’s master password." Additionally, Elcomsoft iPhone Password Breaker does not use Apple iTunes. According to the manufacturer, all password recovery operations are performed offline.

In terms of the legality of this software, the iPhone Password Breaker is, indeed, legal but only for people using it on their own iPhones or those for which they have permission to access. The basic "Home Edition" of the software runs $79 while the "Professional Edition" is a little more pricey at $199.

To read more about "Password Breaker" and its myriad attributes, check out the full software profile - or try the free trial version - from Elcomsoft.

Note: to use GPU acceleration with NVIDIA or ATI card(s), you should have the latest drivers installed. Please note, however, that ATI drivers are not perfect, and the latest version (Catalyst 10.4) may cause problems; it is recommended to use Catalyst 10.3.

Elcomsoft

[plumoso]

What to much $$$$$$$$$$$

[tremerone]

Too funny. Who needs malicious code and hackers! You can just own this at home!

[whereswaldo]

If only this was out when I forgot my password last year...

[havoc0351]

Awesome...

[RICO_]

So wait a second.....so if I sell an iPhone I don't want anymore to an outside buyer, then they can purchase this program and hack into my old phone that I sold them and recover all of MY personal deleted data?

[jOnGarrett]

why you guys acting so surprised by this? Law Enforcement and others already have such tools. you should know by now that anything digital is never truly "encrypted"

[confucious]

What to much $$$$$$$$$$$

Nowhere near enough $$$$$$$$$$

It should cost a LOT more to discourage people from actually buying it.

[robertr1]

Why would anyone actually need this for anything legal.

[rryyddeerr]

we could all just erase everything on our phones and just memorize it. then we would be safe. convenience comes with a price. always has always will.

[alexevo]

They can't decrypt your data if your data isn't available any more. I.e. if you do a proper wipe and overwrite your data enough times then this won't recover it. It only cracks password-protected backups which means the backups have to exist first.

Example: when I sold my last iPhone I spent the week preceding the sale wiping the phone over and over and syncing enough music on it to fill up the memory multiple times with garbage so that there wasn't any space left. When you wipe the phone and fill up all of the available space with other data, the old data gets overwritten. If you do it enough times it is too difficult to recover with conventional tools such as this one and only really hardcore ones like what the NSA uses can recover it.

[Trooper Sam]

So wait a second.....so if I sell an iPhone I don't want anymore to an outside buyer, then they can purchase this program and hack into my old phone that I sold them and recover all of MY personal deleted data?

No, what this means, if my reading comprehension has not dropped precipitously, is that this tool can be used on password-protected backups that you make of your iPhone with iTunes, these backups being resident on your personal computer.

[KartRacer]

Jonathan Zdziarski figured out three years ago how to read everything off and iPhone, even after being wiped, that he wanted. Accessing everything on an iPhone, with or without a password, is old hat. All this is is a home version, this isn't new and groundbreaking.

[dq13]

if it is for personal use... why would you need it? you don't know YOUR OWN password?? and if you want it to see someone else's info, first you need to get into their computers and get the file from it. I personally think it's useless

[BeachLivin88]

Dumb.

[Newgy]

So wait a second.....so if I sell an iPhone I don't want anymore to an outside buyer, then they can purchase this program and hack into my old phone that I sold them and recover all of MY personal deleted data?

No, it is for protected backups of your personal iOS on your computer. So, if you are dumb enough to sell someone your computer with all of your data still on it then I guess you deserve to give out all that information. But if you are selling a used iPhone and the data has been erased, then this will not affect your privacy information whatsoever.

[kuhndsn]

Just use bcwipe gov pass (takes a long time but destroyes all reminace, it's what we use in mil prior to declass) before you sell your devices.

[RICO_]

No, it is for protected backups of your personal iOS on your computer. So, if you are dumb enough to sell someone your computer with all of your data still on it then I guess you deserve to give out all that information. But if you are selling a used iPhone and the data has been erased, then this will not affect your privacy information whatsoever.

Ah I see now. Thank you.

[spice_weasel]

If that bothers you guys, you prob really won't like this one.

FTK Mobile Phone Examiner - the broadest support for mobile phone analysis.

[topless1967stang]

I bet most buyers will be people wanting to spy on their spouse or kids.