Smartphones resp. Cell phones today are mostly password protected. Can the police crack such passwords? So if the data on the memory has not been additionally encrypted?
13 answers
Are you concerned about the passwords (i.e. the plain text) themselves or only about data stored on the ‘protected’ smartphone ?
The data itself – if unencrypted – is somewhere in the file system of the smartphone. At the latest, if you unsolder the flash components – or have the necessary debug access to the smartphone CPU – you can get at the data.
Otherwise, the ‘brute force’ method always helps.
Well: After 1000 years I might have bruteforced the password.
But whether that is still of any use to me?
The thousand years was once.
On the one hand, the 0815 user usually does not use a cryptic password – d.h. with a ‘dictionary attack’ one is often very quickly successful. Second, the machine today have become extremely fast. Statistics say that on average 6-7 digit passwords are used. A today’s 0815-QuadCore CPU is thus within 12 hours by.
But as I said, to get the content of the (unencrypted) file system, this is not necessary at all .
With modern encryption no, if the password is strong enough you can’t crack it neither with bruteforce nor with dictionary attacks. But for that your phone has to be really encrypted including the SD card. Unless we are talking about American intelligence agencies that have deliberately placed their backdoors in the software of American companies
Then of course yes. Many do not encrypt their phone they just use a control lock. If the police can’t get the lock bypassed they can still unsolder the memory and read it out
I don’t think that this is a task of the police, probably we make a request for a cell phone search, and the object is then forwarded to the respective specialists.
I was also concerned about confiscated cell phones.
By means of bruteforce attacks, by and large any password can be cracked. The only question is how long it will take and what kind of effort it will take (are there vectors that the password does not have to be entered manually via the touchscreen)?.)
Details depend on the phone itself, operating system and the configuration of the same and can not be answered in general.
Does brute force work even if after 10 wrong entries the device is deleted? How should I imagine this?
No, it does not. This deleting after x attempts is one of the defense measures against brute force / dictionary attacks.
If the data on the memory is not encrypted, you do not have to crack the password at all. -You just read out the memory directly.
Similar questions
Pc was confiscated And this is password protected by truecrypt and additionally by windows. However, the officer wanted to know if there were any passwords on it and I told him "not that I know of". Do I have to give information? Or can I keep this for myself? Otherwise I should consult a lawyer if my pc has been seized to request this after 3-6 months? I do not care if they crack the password.. May well be.
Hello, in march 2018 my smartphone ( also Ipad etc. ) confiscated by the police during a house search. In July 2018 was my court hearing where the charges were dropped. In court, the police officer had testified not to have tried to ‘unlock’ the smartphone, because this had been too high from the costs. I received the letter for this in October 2018. White Anyone when I will be able to get my personal items back? Or where to report there. Are the police still in possession of my items or do I have to report to the prosecutor? Maybe I can get it back without request. Hope you can help me with this. Thanks already. Please only serious answers.
when I was at home I noticed that my PC and 2 cell phones were missing. A note was left by the police. A house search was carried out because of BTM offences. So now to my question:
My PC is completely encrypted with VeraCrypt, but my cell phones are open. From the VeraCrypt I forgot the password, both cell phone passwords I gave to the police. Do I have a chance to get my phones back?
Edit: I have nothing to hide and with me you will find nothing either. I have the feeling that the Sta decides on a whim whether something is confiscated or not.
Hello dear community,
Unfortunately there was a house search, which to my knowledge was unfounded. But this remains to be seen. My laptop/PC is encrypted with True Crypt. Unfortunately, there was an ancient hard drive in my apartment that I had completely forgotten about. It may be that there are still data from my past on it.
Now to my question: Am I threatened with additional charges because of possible illegal data from the hard drive, but which are unrelated to the search warrant and the crime accused therein and were found only by chance and already several years in the past?
Thanks in advance from you!
in case of a house search in my flat share I am also under suspicion because I lived in the same house with the "perpetrator". The police took my laptop and they want to check what is on it, etc.
The laptop runs Linux Ubuntu and has been encrypted with AES 512 bit directly during the installation, namely the complete system partition. How likely is it that the police will be able to decrypt it?? The password is almost 40 digits long and contains special characters etc. so bruteforcing is almost impossible there in my opinion.
I have nothing illegal on the computer I just find it outrageous that they want to snoop around in my computer just because I lived together with the offender.
Thanks in advance 
Hello, I have encrypted my hard drive with TrueCrypt with AES. How secure is that? My password is 8 characters long and has upper and lower case letters, numbers and special characters. According to a site I can’t think of, it would take infinite years to get a PC back. Can the police crack it anyway, so AES has weak points?? Should I choose the option to use 3 algorithms??
I bet with my friend that I don’t have to tell the password to the police and he said they will get a warrant or something. I know I’m right because you don’t need to incriminate yourself and that’s what I would do with it. Or not? What is it called in the law? So somehow I have to prove it to my friend.
Hello dear community, I currently have my smartphone registered with Sparkasse Onlinebanking. My question now would be if I could add one more to it. So halt that one then on two smartphones Tan code, etc. gets.
Thanks in advance
I became a victim of domestic violence 4 weeks ago. During the act I recorded something on my smartphone using a dictation machine. When I was in the hospital, the police took my smartphone. This was a huge pain for me, because I couldn’t reach anybody and my parents were on vacation. The police said that I will get the smartphone back in 3-4 days. Now 4 weeks have passed and I still do not have it back. The police officer says: it will take time and I will contact you when I get it back. The case itself is already at the prosecutor’s office. Concretely it is about a GefKv. Due to the confiscation of the smartphone I am of course reminded of the incident again and again -.- I should actually start writing my bachelor thesis now, but unfortunately there are many files on the smartphone that I need for it. Also when I asked if I would at least get my sim card back, since I am paying for the contract, all I got was: "no, we have to do a FULL mirroring of the device".
My question: is this legal?? I feel slowly like a perpetrator and not like a victim -.- I also don’t want to be reminded of this incident every day.
Hello, I exchanged my phone for another phone with someone, we met and tested the phones everything was fine and I agreed, when I was home I set up the phone and noticed that the speaker does not work, have not tested the speaker. The other one does not answer my messages.. Besides, I only have our history on eBay classifieds and no name or address.. What can I do? Does a report bring something? Can the police find out his address? Thanks a lot.
and I cannot prove that it is mine? Is that clear? No one will report it as stolen.