Recovering Windows Credentials with Elcomsoft System Recovery
April 23rd, 2026 by Oleg Afonin
In traditional forensic workflows, gaining access to a Windows system was a straightforward exercise: extract the NT hashes from a local database and run a fast (very fast!) offline attack. Today, Windows authentication is moving away from those essentially insecure NTLM hashes toward more resilient mechanisms. Microsoft is actively steering users away from local Windows accounts, pushing them toward cloud-integrated identities (such as the Microsoft Account) and hardware-backed security models (like Windows Hello).
Apple Two-Factor Authentication and the iCloud
May 30th, 2013 by Vladimir Katalov
Finally, two-factor authentication is not a silver bullet. There are scenarios where two-factor authentication simply is not enough. But still, it is a good idea to enable 2FA on all your accounts.
iCloud backups inside out
February 25th, 2013 by Vladimir Katalov
It’s been a while since we released the new version of Elcomsoft Phone Password Breaker that allows downloading backups from iCloud (read the press release). Many customers all over the world are already using this new feature intensively, but we still get many questions about its benefits, examples of cases when it can be used and how to use it properly. We also noticed many ironic comments in different forums (mostly from users without any experience in using iOS devices and so have no idea what iCloud backups actually are, I guess), saying that there is nothing really new or interesting there, because anyone with Apple ID and password can access the data stored in iCloud backup anyway.
Yahoo!, Dropbox and Battle.net Hacked: Stopping the Chain Reaction
February 14th, 2013 by Vladimir Katalov
Major security breaches occur in quick succession one after another. Is it a chain reaction? How do we stop it?
Norwegian Teenagers Hacking iCloud Accounts
February 7th, 2013 by Olga Koksharova
A few days ago, we received the following communication from an obsessed password researcher and our long-standing friend (quoted with his permission):
ElcomSoft Decrypts BitLocker, PGP and TrueCrypt Containers
December 20th, 2012 by Vladimir Katalov
BitLocker, PGP and TrueCrypt set industry standard in the area of whole-disk and partition encryption. All three tools provide strong, reliable protection, and offer a perfect implementation of strong crypto.
