WhatsApp Encryption: Elcomsoft Explorer for WhatsApp has been launched

elcomsoft explorerA new important and interesting tool has been released by ElcomSoft Co Ltd.. What is this about? This tool brings several acquisition options that will enable experts to extract an decrypt WhatsApp messages stored in iTunes and iCloud or in other WhatsApp backups. ElcomSoft Co Ltd, the company that created this tool, is a privately owned company which has its headquarter in Moscow (Russia) and develops solutions for digital forensics and IT security industries and cooperates with military, intelligence agencies and law enforcement providing a range of forensic products used in criminal investigations.

So, what are their plans for Whatsapp? Here what Vladimir Katalov, ElcomSoft CEO, said about it in a post on the Company’s blog: “We have recently released a brand new product, Elcomsoft Explorer for WhatsApp. Targeted at home users and forensic experts along, this Windows-based, iOS-centric tool offers a bunch of extraction options for WhatsApp databases. Why the new tool, and how is it different from other extraction options offered by Elsomsoft’s mobile forensic tools? Before we move on to that, let’s have a look at the current state of WhatsApp  …

Due to its overwhelming popularity, WhatsApp quickly became a target for spammers, hoaxers and plain criminals of all kinds. The very fact that the messenger app is designed to use secure end-to-end communications makes it difficult for the police to investigate cases involving WhatsApp messaging. Since no logs are stored on carrier’s side, requesting WhatsApp history files from the mobile carrier or an Internet service provider is not possible. The only way to acquire WhatsApp histories is imaging end-user devices or pulling data from local or cloud backups. And that’s exactly what we do in Elcomsoft Explorer for WhatsApp  …

Future Development: We are considering adding more features to Elcomsoft Explorer for WhatsApp to allow extracting WhatsApp histories from a wider range of devices. For now, the tool is limited to iOS, yet we want to add the ability to extract WhatsApp databases from Windows devices (Windows Phone 8.x and Windows 10 Mobile), BlackBerry backups and Android phones (via Google accounts). Stay tuned for more news!”  You can read the full article here.