EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

Despite the adamant stance among tech companies that cell phones should not have ‘backdoors’, law enforcement agencies insist that ‘backdoors’ are critical in obtaining legally incriminating evidence. A digital footprint can make or break a case.

To this end, agencies rely on companies that manufacture sophisticated devices designed to crack even the most highly fortified cell phones.

An eBay merchant in the UK recently discovered one of these phone cracking devices in what he thought was a pile of junk. Now, he and other eBay resellers are acquiring and selling the systems online for between $100 and $1,000 dollars. As newly minted devices, they cost $6,000 apiece.

A cyber security expert recently purchased a dozen of these devices in order to determine what kind of information could be obtained through them. As it turns out, IMEI codes belonging to suspects’ phones were easily accessible, along with other potentially sensitive information.

“You’d think a forensics device used by law enforcement would be wiped before resale,” noted the security expert. In theory, a malicious hacker could isolate suspects and retrieve information pertaining to pending lawsuits.

Worse, the devices’ flubs indicate that a person could modify indispensable criminal evidence.

To insure the proper demolition of sensitive data, enterprises that no longer wish to keep their devices are encouraged to either destroy them, or to ship them back to the manufacturer for secure destruction.

Securely storing data is imperative for enterprises across the spectrum. How does your data storage stack up?

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