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With the rise of cryptocurrency, digital wallets are becoming just as valuable as traditional bank accounts. Unlike bank accounts, however, access to a crypto wallet is often secured by a “recovery phrase,” which is a set of randomly generated words used to restore the wallet if you lose access to the device or forget your password.
Even if you remember this recovery phrase, you still need access to your phone to re-enter it and unlock your wallet. But what if you’re locked out of your phone entirely, making it impossible to access the wallet app?
In these cases, cell phone forensic technology can help. Advanced forensic tools can unlock phones securely and recover access to your crypto wallet and other essential data. Here’s how these technologies work and how they can help you regain control of your digital assets.
Cell Phone Forensics in Crypto Wallet Recovery
In the digital forensics sub-discipline of cell phone forensics, specialize technology has been used by law enforcement for years to access locked devices during investigations.
At one time, this technology was only available to law enforcement and government agencies. Today, select private labs have the capability to unlock cell phones for the general public (when the necessary prerequisites are met). By employing specialized tools, forensic experts can unlock a device and gain access to apps and data stored on it, including crypto wallets.
As the leader of a digital forensics practice, I acquired this technology for my team as soon as it became available, knowing it would enable us to assist people in difficult situations.
These situations include not only helping individuals regain access to their crypto wallets but also supporting families by recovering precious memories and essential documents from the locked smartphones of loved ones who have suddenly passed away.
Cracking Passcodes With Cell Phone Forensics
One of the first challenges in recovering a crypto wallet on a locked phone is bypassing the screen lock. Screen locks can take the form of PINs, patterns, passwords or biometric security like fingerprint and facial recognition.
Forensic tools like Cellebrite use algorithms that allow experts to unlock a device without damaging its data. These tools analyze the phone’s security settings and use brute-force and other password cracking techniques to bypass them.
Once the device is unlocked, you can access your crypto wallet app directly or retrieve any information stored within it. If you remember your recovery phrase, unlocking the phone is the key first step in re-entering that phrase and restoring your wallet.
Password and Passphrase Are Different
For those who remember their wallet recovery phrase but cannot access their phone, cell phone forensic technology offers an essential solution. By unlocking the device, digital forensic experts can help you recover both your phone and your wallet, giving you back control over your digital assets.
But What If I Forgot My Passphrase?
In most cases, digital forensics cannot directly recover a crypto wallet’s recovery phrase unless it was stored somewhere on the device, like in a note, text message, or another app.
Recovery phrases are typically designed to be highly secure and are not stored within the wallet app itself in an easily accessible or visible way. They are generated specifically to be written down and stored separately, outside the device, to prevent unauthorized access.
However, if a user previously saved the passphrase in a note, an email, a message, or a cloud backup linked to the device, digital forensics tools might be able to retrieve it.
Forensic experts can search the device’s memory and storage, including deleted files, to search for any text or documents that may contain the passphrase. They can also recover deleted data that might contain the recovery phrase if it was stored or input on the device at any point.
What If My Phone Is Not Supported For Unlocking?
Even if a specific phone model cannot be unlocked with current digital forensics technology, there is hope for the future as these tools continue to evolve. Advancements in digital forensics are rapid, with new techniques and software updates being developed regularly to accommodate an ever-growing range of devices.
A phone that is locked today due to unsupported security features might become accessible down the line as technology catches up. For those who have critical information stored on such devices, this means that waiting for new developments could eventually lead to the recovery of valuable data, whether it’s for personal memories, essential documents, or access to financial assets like cryptocurrency wallets.
As technology progresses, previously inaccessible devices could open up new possibilities for data retrieval and provide solutions to challenges that once seemed insurmountable.
Expert Recommendation: Currently Unsupported Phones
If you have a locked phone containing important data that current technology cannot yet unlock, it’s wise to set that phone aside without performing any updates or further attempts to access it.
Updates or additional security measures could make it even harder for future technology to retrieve the data. Instead, keep the phone in a secure place and consider using a different device for your daily needs.
As digital forensics technology advances, new solutions may become available that could help recover the information stored on the locked phone. By preserving it in its current state, you increase the likelihood that a future unlocking method will be effective, because as forensic technology advances the phone is remaining the same since it is not in use.