Grayshift Announces Android Support To Its GrayKey iPhone Hacking Tool

4.9K

After achieving success with unlocking iPhones – the phones that boast security – the hacking tool maker has now made another claim. As announced, Grayshift has finally added Android support to its iPhone hacking tool GrayKey. It means they can now hack into locked Android phones as well.

Grayshift Android Support to GrayKey

In a recent press release, the American mobile devices forensic firm Grayshift has announced adding Android support to GrayKey.

The forensic firm first came up with its GrayKey hacking tool in 2018. At that time, it successfully cracked into the then-latest devices running up to iOS 11.2.5, including the iPhone X.

Regarding its specs, GrayKey is a 4”x4”x2” sized box bearing two lightning cables. Connecting phones to the device then make it brute force passcodes. This can take up to a few minutes or some hours to guess the codes, depending on their complexity.

Owing to its success, the device is typically used by law enforcement authorities in many countries, predominantly in the US and Canada for iPhone examinations.

While the firm didn’t initially support Android, they have now claimed to have achieved success with Android phones too.

What Next?

At present, their GrayKey tool now works with Samsung S20 and S9. In the future, the hacking tool may also advance to crack into more Android phones.

However, what remains unclear is whether the tool can extract enough data from locked phones to support investigations.

Often, these tools face trouble in extracting information from secure messenger apps.

While recently, the Israel-based firm Cellebrite claimed to have decrypted the Signal app’s database from an unlocked Android device.

Nonetheless, Signal debunked the claim by highlighting how having an unlocked phone remains a key point. And that having an unlocked phone doesn’t really need all the effort to decrypt a database when the person can simply open the app to access the chats.

Presently, Grayshift’s GrayKey tool still draws attention from LEAs for extracting data from iPhones. So, even if the tool works at the same pace for Android, it may still be lucrative for the agencies.