Elcomsoft Blog
blog.elcomsoft.com · Company blog · on HN since 2016
Elcomsoft's blog covers password recovery, encryption weaknesses and mobile forensics, including iOS, password managers and disk encryption.
What HN saysHN links it for security research on Nikon image authentication, Synology encryption and password manager brute-forcing, though one commenter says a headline overstated a possible flaw.
66HN people shared it
33linked it in comments
51stories submitted
1.6Kstory points
7 months agolast shared
2016people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1iOS 11 Horror Story: The Rise and Fall of iOS Security6 people · 476 points · first shared 2017 · 181 comments on HN
- 2Nikon image authentication system compromised6 people · first shared 2016
- 3Breaking LUKS Encryption (2020)3 people · 2 points · first shared 2023 · 2 comments on HN
- 4Apple scraps end to end encryption of icloud backups3 people · first shared 2021
- 5Breaking VeraCrypt: Obtaining and Extracting On-the-Fly Encryption Keys2 people · 82 points · first shared 2021 · 29 comments on HN
- 6Breaking LastPass: Instant Unlock of the Password Vault2 people · 51 points · first shared 2020 · 9 comments on HN
- 7Analysing Apple Pay Transactions2 people · 14 points · first shared 2018 · 9 comments on HN
- 8Attacking the 1Password Master Password Follow-Up2 people · 5 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 9This $39 Device Can Defeat iOS USB Restricted Mode2 people · 3 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
- 10Significant Locations, iOS 14 and iCloud2 people · 3 points · first shared 2020 · 1 comments on HN
- 11Synology NAS Encryption: Forensic Analysis of Synology NAS Devices2 people · 2 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 12How to Extract and Decrypt Signal Conversation History from the iPhone2 people · 2 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 13Volume Encryption in Synology DSM 7.2: LUKS with Questionable Key Management2 people · 1 points · first shared 2023 · 1 comments on HN
- 14Extract and decrypt whatsapp backups from google2 people · first shared 2018
- 15Apple fbi and iphone backup encryption everything you wanted to know2 people · first shared 2021
What HN people wrote when they linked it
userbinator · 2024-09-13
This appears to be a cross-platform version of h2testw, which is widely recommended for finding the true capacity of a storage device. Another common recommendation is ChipGenius and the various manufacturer-specific tools, which can read the real ID of the NAND ICs, that AFAIK is beyond the ability of nearly all the fakers to change:
https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2019/01/identifying-ssd-controller-and-nand…
From the research I've done (mainly related to data recovery), the NAND flash industry seems extremely secretive and shady in many ways --- from the near-zero availability of public datasheets, to the many rebrands/"reclaimed"/recycled part sources, to what they're doing to SLC and higher-reliability technologies. There are also ways to determine how worn-out a NAND IC is, but even those may be reversible with the right physical treatments.
ChrisLomont · 2022-08-15
Did you read the article?
The article says there might be a flaw, and it would be a huge deal. It does not state those phones are broken. It does not extract keys, which would be needed in the case of Sony cameras to sign fake pictures.
Here's a later followup article from Elcomsoft, one of the best security firms around [1]. The key quote: "checkm8 does not affect the Secure Enclave."
So no, they did not extract keys needed that would be needed to sign new phots for the Sony phone.
And later iPhones have removed this as a vector. It's unlikely Sony made the same mistakes quite old iPhones did, since they have the ability to learn from past security issues.
[1] https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2021/05/checkm8-based-extraction-of-iphone-…
aborsy · 2021-04-29
It’s worth mentioning that, people found that Synology also has a default encryption password (same password for all devices):
https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2019/11/synology-nas-encryption-forensic-an…
The OpenVPN also had a hidden password:
https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2014-2264/
The funny thing is that, they didn’t even bother to choose a longer password (the password is synopass). Even if people haven’t found them, an attacker brute forcing these passwords would easily find them.
rickyc091 · 2018-03-28
A while back I recall AgileBits pushing a blog about their security. While this one isn't from them directly, it reinforces the notion that they slow down the number of passwords you can brute force by increasing the number of rounds.
Edit >> Forgot to post the link to the article
https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2017/08/attacking-the-1password-master-pass…
Tepix · 2025-10-24
Remember, Nikon's image authentication was hacked back in 2011 https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2011/04/nikon-image-authentication-system-c…
The ACLU is sceptical regarding the whole concept: https://www.aclu-or.org/en/news/attempts-technological-solution-disinf…
The root causes podcast discusses this topic in its episode 336: https://www.sectigo.com/resource-library/root-causes-336-digitally-sig…
I strongly believe this should be an open source project.
Shank · 2025-08-29
The encryption is also broken. If you use encrypted shared folders, you have an arbitrary filename limit (https://kb.synology.com/en-ro/DSM/tutorial/File_folder_path_name_too_l… If you use volume encryption, your encryption key is stored on the NAS itself, which is capable of decrypting the data, unless you buy a second Synology NAS (https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2023/06/volume-encryption-in-synology-dsm-7… to act as a key vault. Synology claims that volume encryption protects if you if the storage drives are stolen, but in what world would the drives, and not the NAS itself, be stolen?
x1sec · 2023-06-26
Most defiantly. iOS is a different kettle of fish.
Same challenges are present with performing forensics on an iPhone! The top commercial forensic toolkits will try to jailbreak the handset if possible to pull off artifacts. Good luck on newer hardware with the latest iOS versions. [1]
On the topic of iOS forensics, you can still get quite many useful artifacts from iOS backups with Mobile Verification Toolkit [2] being quite exceptional. I have had less success with iOS backups and the popular iLEAPP forensics software [3].
[1] https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2022/09/ios-forensic-toolkit-8-0-now-offici…
[2] https://docs.mvt.re/en/latest/
[3] https://github.com/abrignoni/iLEAPP
mr_mitm · 2023-04-23
The number comes from this mastodon post, which is cited in the original article:
https://kolektiva.social/@cedar/110214532879538171
> This enemy site talks about using up to 10,000 computers with GPU acceleration to attack a LUKS password:
> https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2020/08/breaking-luks-encryption/
There, it says:
> Up to 10,000 computers and on-demand cloud instances can be used to attack a single password with Elcomsoft Distributed Password Recovery.
So this is the theoretical maximum of some service.
We should not be under the impression that the hard drive of the activist in question has been attacked with 10,000 GPUs.
sliken · 2022-12-23
No experience, just saw a post on someone attacking LastPass Vaults. It looked to include everything. Apparently they wrote a tool specifically attempting password recovery on LastPass vaults and with a RTX 2070 (2 generation old) managed 309,000 against the 5000 iteration flavor and 15,500 against the 100,100 flavor.
More info at: https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2020/04/breaking-lastpass-instant-unlock-of…
nullc · 2022-11-07
Just because something is different from something that doesn't work doesn't mean the different thing will work: most things don't work.
I'm not seeing anything in your description that couldn't also be said about using PKI to allow people to sign stuff they published. (And better: it's not broken by non-deceptive edits, like cropping or brightness adjustments)-- except that PKI already exists so we can't imagine that it would magically solve these problems. :) (and there is a long long history of people thinking varrious PKI ideas will magically solve varrious problems and then failing to solve them at all)
(I mean cameras that produced 'signed' output is also a thing that has previously existed too: https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2011/04/nikon-image-authentication-system-c… and was never particularly popular even with the target market)
btdmaster · 2022-10-16
It looks like checkra1n is more limited in that case[0][1] so I'm not sure if there are any workarounds that can get you the whole way. I would ask in their bugtracker: https://github.com/checkra1n/BugTracker
[0] https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2020/05/iphone-usb-restricted-mode-workarou…
[1] https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2020/07/checkra1n-usb-restrictions-and-brea…
EvanAnderson · 2022-08-14
Nikon had this years ago. The signing key was extracted: https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2011/04/nikon-image-authentication-system-c…
judge2020 · 2022-04-16
The original article is here[0], but it seems this article might not be holding its weight[1], so perhaps there never was a plan to encrypt iCloud backups.
0: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusive-idUSKBN1…
1: https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2021/01/apple-fbi-and-iphone-backup-encrypt…
kylehotchkiss · 2021-08-01
https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2021/01/apple-scraps-end-to-end-encryption-…
Interestingly apple was planning end to end encryption of backups but changed their minds on the matter.
codethief · 2021-04-07
Thanks for the response! I will have to postpone a detailed response to later. In the meantime:
> Make an Access Point, use smartphone to connect to it. Run Wireshark, and you'll see what's happening.
That won't help when it comes to how stuff is encrypted locally, i.e. the hardware-backed encryption[0].
PS: I think I updated my comment while you were already responding.
[0]: https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2019/08/how-to-extract-and-decrypt-signal-c…
jojo2000 · 2020-03-26
Bad blocks bad blocks what ya gonna do, what ya gonna do when they come for you.
Hard drives fail hard or smooth, SSDs fail hard ! On a hard drive, we can picture how the blocks are stored (sequentially). On an SSD, there is a remapping of blocks in silicon+firmware, and this added layer adds its own bugs [0] [1].
[0] https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2019/01/why-ssds-die-a-sudden-death-and-how…
[1] https://www.anandtech.com/show/6503/second-update-on-samsung-ssd-84084…
(edit : added one reference more)
mattkrause · 2020-01-21
Nikon had something like this (the "Image Authentication System", which used a builtin key to sign the images) but somebody managed to pull the signing key off the camera:
https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2011/04/nikon-image-authentication-system-c…
Same thing happened with Canon's implementation the year before.
codesuela · 2020-01-16
The phone was released with iOS 13 which prominently featured enhancements to USB restricted mode[1] which was supposed to defend against GrayKey/Cellebrite attacks. Seems like GrayKey can easily bypass that feature. Does not really inspire much trust in Apples security team as the USB restricted mode was already a bandaid itself.
[1] https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2019/09/usb-restricted-mode-in-ios-13-apple…
shawnz · 2020-01-11
When you get the prompt to input the code, just choose "Did not get a verification code" and it will fall back to SMS.
See: https://blog.elcomsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/apple_2fa-550x34…
kakarot · 2018-10-30
That's some intense gatekeeping... At least I can root my Android phone.
iOS security, from a targeted hacking perspective, is easier than ever to circumvent for full control: https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2017/11/ios-11-horror-story-the-rise-and-fa…
Apple also has a nasty habit of coercing users into upgrade to new models, reducing the need for supporting older devices and artificially limiting the amount of older phones in circulation: https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-faces-multiple-lawsuits-over-thrott…
Yizahi · 2018-10-18
How is writing down PIN related to security? It is still a single point of failure, attacker knowing PIN can gain access to everything in your account - iCloud, password backups etc. And in iOS10 security was better, so Apple consciously decided to degrade it in iOS11. See source - https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2017/11/ios-11-horror-story-the-rise-and-fa…
okket · 2018-07-10
Original source (also linked in the article)
https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2018/07/this-9-device-can-defeat-ios-usb-re…
snthd · 2018-06-16
Media backups are not encrypted, but data is.
Backup key security is compromised by usability concerns (the need to restore the backup to a new phone without the old one).
https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2018/01/extract-and-decrypt-whatsapp-backup…
walterbell · 2018-05-29
Is flickering the issue with PWM? The article does mention Apple’s research in microLED.
Edit: iPhoneX flickering: https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2018/03/iphone-x-eye-strain-how-to-stop-ole…
angry_octet · 2018-05-09
> you mean something like ios keychain? what does this do that can't be achieved using disk encryption + sandbox?
Because once the phone is booted and unlocked by the user there is no further protection. Do you keep your phone turned off?
Also the lack of device pairing means it is usually easy to dump the encrypted image and crack the pass code quite quickly.
https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2017/10/ios-vs-android-physical-data-extrac…
> firefox for android
I find it quite slow, slower than chrome downloading all the ads. But it is an option I guess. It won't get wider uptake though, the default platform browser is the main game.
coolspot · 2021-07-21
Apple is known to hand off whole China iCloud to CCP.
Also they refuse to zero-knowledge (e2e) encrypt US iCloud backups[1].
In San Bernandino shooter’s case, they refused FBI’s request to develop new tools to hack an already locked iPhone.
However I have little doubt they will refuse to sign&push OTA update of a Signal.app or “improved” iOS developed and provided by NSA.
Mercenary who helped Carlos Ghosn, recalled that in the middle of operation, while riding a train, his iPhone suddenly rebooted and started an iOS update[2]:
--
On the train, Taylor’s phone began an unexpected automatic software update. “The first thing I thought was, I wonder if the NSA knows,” he recalls. “I wouldn’t put anything past them.”
--
[1] - https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2021/01/apple-scraps-end-to-end-encryption-…
[2] - https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/how-carlos-ghosn-escaped-japan