Every once in a while, hi-tech companies release reports on government requests that they received and served (or not). The different companies receive a different number of requests. They don’t treat them the same way, and they don’t report them the same way, which makes the comparison difficult. In this article, we’ll try to analyze and compare government request reports published by Apple, Google and Microsoft.

Before we start discussing Google’s two-factor authentication, let’s first look how Google protects user accounts if two-factor authentication is not enabled. If Google detects an unusual sign-in attempt (such as one originating from a new device located in a different country or continent), it may prompt the user to confirm their account. This can (or cannot) be done in various ways such as receiving a verification code to an existing backup email address that was previously configured in that account. Interestingly, even receiving and entering such a code and answering all the additional security questions Google may ask about one’s account does not actually confirm anything. Without two-factor authentication, Google may easily decline sign-in requests it deems suspicious. From first-hand experience, one is then forced to change their Google Account password. (Interestingly, Microsoft exhibits similar behavior, yet the company allows using two-factor authentication in such cases even if two-factor authentication is not enabled for that account. Weird, but that’s how it works.)

Google is pushing Android to make it a truly secure mobile OS. Mandatory encryption and secure boot make physical acquisition of new Android devices a dead end.

Just now, we’ve updated Elcomsoft Cloud Explorer to version 1.10. This new release adds the ability to download email messages from the user’s Gmail account for offline analysis. In order to do that, we had to develop a highly specialized email client. We opted to use Google’s proprietary Gmail API to download mail. In this article, we’ll explain our decision and detail the benefits you’ll be getting by choosing a tool that can talk to Gmail in Gmail language. 

While here at ElcomSoft we offer a limited range of tools for acquiring Android devices that’s pretty much limited to over-the-air acquisition, we are still often approached with questions when one should use cloud extraction, and when other acquisition methods should be used. In this article, we decided to sum up our experience in acquiring the various Android devices, explaining why we decided to go for a cloud acquisition tool instead of implementing the many physical and logical extraction methods. This article is a general summary of available acquisition methods for the various makes, models, chipsets and OS versions of Android smartphones. The article is not intended to be a technical guide; instead, it’s supposed to give you a heads-up on approaching Android acquisition.

As we all know, Google collects and processes an awful lot of data about pretty much everyone who is using the company’s cloud services or owns a smartphone running the Android OS (or, to be precise, is using a device with Google Mobile Services). Just how much data is available was described in our previous article, What Google Knows about You, and Why It Matters. Today, we’ll discuss something slightly different. Meet Google Timeline, a relatively new feature extending the company’s Maps service.

In today’s thoroughly connected world, everyone shares at least some of their personal information with, well, strangers. Voluntarily or not, people using personal computers or mobile devices have some of their information transmitted to, processed, stored and used by multiple online service providers.

Google made a video tour inside their premises. Looks like an amazing wire-n-hardware gathering: