Cellebrite extends digital intelligence portfolio to help combat emerging drone threat

Israel-based Cellebrite introduced on November 28 the industry’s most comprehensive solution for the extraction and analysis of data obtained from the most popular civilian drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Cellebrite is the industry’s only provider to deliver an end-to-end solution for drone forensics that allows drone data to be accessed and analyzed in concert with data from other digital sources using advanced text, image, and video analytics engines to accelerate intelligence-gathering operations and law enforcement investigations.   

“The commercial availability of inexpensive yet sophisticated drones around the world has spurred the use of UAVs for criminal and terrorist activities, ranging from smuggling to weaponized systems to illicit information gathering on infrastructure and sensitive facilities’ vulnerabilities,” said Ron Serber, global co-CEO, Cellebrite. “Combining forensic and analytic capabilities, our innovative digital intelligence solution enables investigators to obtain, gather and quickly use forensically-sound digital intelligence for drone-related investigations. This enables law enforcement to become more proactive in anticipating future threats involving drones.”

To date, law enforcement and federal agency investigations of drones suspected of being used for criminal or terrorist activity have been limited by the minimal amount of data that can be directly extracted from drones. Cellebrite’s industry-leading digital evidence extraction and analysis capabilities provides access to data, either extracted from the physical drone or on a mobile application, to deliver critical digital evidence including pictures, video, logs, journey maps based on locations and time stamps, and take-off and retrieval locations. The extracted data, including data from previous journeys that was automatically deleted by the drone, provides law enforcement and military investigators with a more comprehensive operational view, yielding deeper insights to quickly identify operators, build stronger cases and take action.

Cellebrite’s new industry-leading capabilities provide comprehensive drone data extraction, decoding and analysis via USB connection, SD card, or remote-control application. Cellebrite’s drone forensic solution enables access to many types of data stored onboard using the drone’s USB port without the need to physically access an SD card or other hardware to obtain digital evidence contained on a drone and its payload.

Cellebrite will immediately support the extraction and analysis of DJI drones (DJI Inspire 2, DJI Phantom 3, DJI Phantom 4 and DJI Mavic) and the DJI GO and DJI GO4 mobile applications.

“Drones increasingly pose a very real and present threat, their complex technology presents significant challenges to law enforcement agencies around the world that are striving to meet the requirements for criminal investigations and actionable intelligence,” said Frank Pace, a Netherlands-based security researcher and policy advisor to law enforcement. “The ability to extract, analyze and share intelligence from drones will help agencies more effectively prosecute current cases and importantly, by learning and comparing trends, become more proactive in increasing the prevention of crimes and acts of terrorism.”

Source: Cellebrite