US report: Android smartphones are harder to crack than iPhones

According to a report from Vice, the US government report revealed its ways of cracking smartphones.

File photo: Huawei P20 Pro

US government is reviving its campaign about strong encryption, but they are demanding tech companies to build backdoors into smartphones to give law enforcers easy and universal access to the data inside them.

Those data could be used as evidence in the court if they conduct the investigations properly.

But even without the help from the phone makers, agencies such as the FBI have ways to defeat encryptions. The article revealed that one of them is Cellebrite, an Israeli company Universal Forensic Extraction Device (UFED) is a favorite of police departments and the FBI.

The company has a tool that could crack the encryption on any iOS and many top-end Android devices.

It noted that the UFED is capable of accurately extractive a lot of device information like GPS data, message,s call logs, contacts, and other social media sites such as Twitter and IG form an iPhone X and previous models.

Android smartphones are harder to crack than iPhones

UFED 4PC could not extract email data from newer iPhone models though. The police need a warrant to access Gmail for example.

However, for high-end Android smartphones, Cellebrite was less successful. Its UFED tool was unable to properly extract any social media, internet browsing, or GPS data from devices like the Google Pixel 2 and Samsung Galaxy S9. It can't get call logs from Ellipsis 8 and Galaxy Tab S2 tablets as well.

The surprise? It got absolutely nothing from Huawei P20 Pro.

Detective Rex Kiser, the one who conducts digital forensic examinations for the Fort Worth Police Department said that "Right now, we’re getting into iPhones. A year ago we couldn’t get into iPhones, but we could get into all the Androids. Now we can't get into a lot of the Androids."

Kiser said that Cellebrite is currently the industry leader for most devices.

This report suggests that Android phones now have better security than iPhones since they are harder to crack.

Android Authority noted that "after all, law enforcement organizations aren’t the only people after your data: criminal enterprises could use the same tools to get your information illegally."

But, we also believe that there should be ways for the police and investigators to access the data when needed.

Source: Vice, Via: Android Authority