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When police want to use smartphones as evidence during an investigation, they often don't have easy access to the device. Even if they have authorization to search a suspect's phone, most modern devices lock their data using passcodes or biometric identification. Law enforcement in many countries uses specialized tools produced by private intelligence companies with names like Grayshift or Cellebrite. Let's have a look at some of the tools available to police, how they work and what information they can retrieve. Surprisingly, most of the technology for law enforcement to extract data from smartphones is publicly advertised. Cellebrite, currently maybe the most prominent company in digital forensics, has a website that looks like any other hip technology startup and they are very open about their services. They even separate into basic and premium services, much like media streaming services sell their subscriptions. One of their most popular devices is their "Cellebrite UFED" which stands for "Universal Forensic Extraction Device". UFED comes in different sizes and variations, for example with a touch screen or a rugged casing. I made a simple 3D model to show what this device roughly looks like. Once a target phone is connected, it can in theory bypass patterns and passwords on some iPhone models and extract data from the phone and SIM card. I'm saying "in theory", because how vulnerable an iPhone is, not only depends on the model and iOS version but also in which state of encryption is currently is. Basically, forensic companies distinguish between two states: Before First Unlock and After First Unlock. While a modern iPhone is turned off, its data is very well encrypted. Up to the time you first enter the device passcode, the phone is in the state "Before First Unlock" or short BFU. Unless Cellebrite have an attack they don't advertise, they currently don't seem to have a way to pull any meaningful data off of a device in the BFU state. The only reasonable attack seems to be to brute force the passcode in this case which is only possible by exploiting security flaws to remove the limit on passcode attempts. But most often, a seized iPhone is already turned on and in the state "After First Unlock" or AFU. In this state, the phone is more vulnerable because lots of encryption keys are stored in quick access memory at this point and it is more likely that some operating system exploit could expose them. Devices like Cellebrite's UFED usually don't break encryption but they find ways around it. An example of these two unlock states in action can be seen when receiving a call. In AFU state, the name of the caller shows up on the screen if it's saved in the contacts. But in BFU state, only the number of the caller shows up because the keys for decrypting the address book are not in memory yet. Cellebrite obviously doesn't provide exact details about how their devices work since most of the attacks are based...