Gain Access To User Credentials Saved In Google Account With UFED Cloud Analyzer

A new capability will be announced in the upcoming release of UFED Cloud Analyzer, providing you with the ability to recover a user’s list of passwords saved in Google Cloud from various websites and cloud services. The credentials (username and password) are extracted from the user’s Google Account passwords sync service, that were saved from chrome browser or the Android device itself.Google offers its users a service that stores usernames and passwords for different websites and cloud services in the Google Cloud. This information can be accessed from the Google Account if the user uses Chrome sync to save passwords or Google Smart Lock for Passwords on the Android device, (Smart Lock syncs passwords to the Google Account when the user signed in on Chrome or on Android).

The examiner can gain access to the Google Account passwords sync service by utilizing known user Google Account credentials, or cloud login information extracted from the mobile device. The examiner can use the saved passwords to download additional data for the investigation using UFED Cloud Analyzer, or manually access the cloud-based service (such as Instagram) on a PC using the extracted credentials .

Revealing user passwords becomes handy in cases where specific applications that are useful for the investigation, such as Facebook, may not be readily available or downloaded on the mobile device. This advanced capability enables examiners and investigators not only to gain direct access to relevant cloud-based accounts, but to also Identify a lexicon of the subject’s passwords, and the logic behind these passwords when attempting to find out credentials to a website or cloud service that the subject was using, for example an online bank account.

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In the example above, the same username (a Gmail account) was used across all websites, and the same password was used several times.

As a major service provider, and with more than one billion active Gmail users, Google is becoming a big source of information for an investigation. According to a current Forensic Focus survey*, cloud forensics is an emerging challenge to digital forensic examiners. Cellebrite continuously searches for solutions to overcomes obstacles in mobile forensic investigations by providing examiners, investigators and prosecutors alike with as much information possible to access evidence on social networks and cloud-based services, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, iCloud, Gmail, Google Drive and Dropbox.