The new year is just around the corner, and so it’s the right time to review our achievements in 2021. We’ve done plenty of researching, developing and updating, and posted a great deal of content in our blog. Let’s run through the most exciting developments of the year!

BestCrypt, developed by the Finnish company Jetico, is a cross-platform commercial disk encryption tool directly competing with BitLocker, FileVault 2 and VeraCrypt. Volume encryption is available for Windows and macOS. Learn how to break BestCrypt full-disk encryption by recovering the original password!

Backups are the primary way to preserve data. On smartphones, backups are handled automatically by the OS. Windows lacks a convincing backup app; numerous third-party tools are available, some of which feature strong encryption. Computer backups may contain valuable evidence that can be useful during an investigation – if you can do something about the password.

Last month we introduced forensically sound low-level extraction for a range of iPhone devices. Based on the renowned checkm8 exploit, our solution supported devices ranging from the iPhone 5s through 6s/6s Plus/SE. Today, we are extending the range of supported devices, adding checkm8 extraction of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus.

Before the end of this year, we are releasing one last update. Advanced Office Password Recovery can now break 40-bit encryption in Microsoft Office documents, and gains support for Thunder Tables. What are Thunder Tables exactly, and is 40-bit encryption still relevant? Read along to find out.

WhatsApp is the fastest growing instant messenger app. With over 2 billion monthly users, WhatsApp keeps the crown of the most popular instant messaging tool in the Western hemisphere. The recent introduction of end-to-end encrypted backups and the change of Google’s authentication protocol broke things temporarily for EXWA users, but now everything is back to normal. Learn how Elcomsoft Explorer for WhatsApp can download and decrypt encrypted WhatsApp communication histories from Google Drive and Apple iCloud!

Installing the checkm8 exploit to perform forensically sound extractions with iOS Forensic Toolkit can be tricky, which is in part due to certain hardware peculiarities.  If you watch our blog, you might have already read the article on checkm8, checkra1n and USB hubs. We have some good news: we managed to fix some of the issues with or without the use of a USB hub.

Many security practices still widely accepted today are things of the past. Many of them made sense at the time of short passwords and unrestricted access to workplaces, while some were learned from TV shows with “Russian hackers” breaking Pentagon. In this article we’ll sort it out.