FBI used Israel's Cellebrite's software to crack Trump shooter's phone
According to the Washington Post, agents investigating the assassination attempt gained access to Thomas Matthew Crooks’ phone in just 40 minutes.
FBI agents used software from the Israeli company Cellebrite to break into the smartphone of the would-be assassin of Donald Trump, the Washington Post reports. Cellebrite's technology enables quick hacking into password-locked phones.
Agents investigating the assassination attempt said they gained access to Thomas Matthew Crooks' phone in just 40 minutes. The Washington Post notes that the assassin used a modern smartphone, which is more difficult to hack than older devices. In many investigations, hacking a device can take months or even weeks.
The device was found on Crooks' body after he was shot by Secret Service snipers. It was initially sent to the FBI's office in Pittsburgh, but they lacked the technology to break into the device, so it was sent to the central laboratory at Quantico. There, they used Cellebrite's technology, which has become a household name in such investigations and is even sometimes mentioned in American TV series with crime-solving plots.
However, according to sources close to the investigation, the phone did not contain direct or immediate information regarding Crooks' motive for the attempted assassination of the U.S. presidential candidate.
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Cellebrite, which trades on Wall Street at a value of $2.4 billion and is managed by Yossi Carmil, sells its solutions to law enforcement authorities worldwide, from local police to federal agencies. Today, it has about 7,000 customers, with about a fifth of its income coming from federal authorities. Cellebrite's annual revenue rate is about $300 million. It employs 1,200 people worldwide, hundreds of them in its offices in Petah Tikva. Since the beginning of the war in Israel, Cellebrite has also been involved in many local investigations, in some cases even working pro bono.
