Cellebrite: In the last few weeks, the death of the boy Henry Borel, four years old, has had repercussions in the Brazilian media. To investigate the relationship between councilor Dr. Jairinho, stepfather of the boy and mother Monique Medeiros, the Rio de Janeiro police used an Israeli program called Cellebrite Premium.
The head of the Civil Police of Rio said that the technology was fundamental to clarify details of the case and to make sure that the councilman attacked Henry.
What is?
The tool is intended exclusively for the use of law enforcement authorities and has the ability to unlock cell phones and access messages and other data deleted from the device. The service, made available by the company specializing in devices for data extraction, Cellebrite, was designed to assist authorities in investigations.
According to the organization, the software can unlock Android and iOS phones, with a laboratory with “certified experts in digital intelligence”.
How Cellebrite Premium works
The operation of the service is a trade secret. However, it is known that the company uses a combination of software and hardware to find security holes and extract data from the cell phone. Considering that the researchers using the program must preserve the legal validity of the evidence, the tool avoids any manipulation or alteration of the device’s data.
Regarding the extraction of data that has already been deleted by the user, experts say that no information is actually deleted from a device. Instead, the system marks the file space as free, but stores memory addresses on the device, making it possible to “retrieve” the information.
In addition to the case of last week, Cellebrite solutions have already been used in other Brazilian investigations, such as in the Lava Jato operations and in the case of councilwoman Marielle Franco and her driver Anderson Gomes. In cases abroad, the technology was used in Operation Enterprise, which investigated international drug trafficking.
Discoveries of the Rio police
The cell phones of Monique, Jairo and Leniel Borel, the child’s father, were seized on the 31st. With the mother’s device, it was possible to recover conversations with the child’s nanny in which the employee claims that her stepfather assaulted Henry. Apparently, the assaults had Monique’s consent.
On the day of the arrest, Jairo and Monique tried to throw their cell phones out of the window and thus destroy evidence, but the devices were seized by the authorities.
