Cellebrite recently announced that its Universal Forensic Extraction Device (UFED) is now able to extract data from Android phones in a physical manner. The UFED device, which already offers physical and logical data extraction and decoding from more than 6,800 device profiles and GPS devices, now includes revolutionary physical extraction for Android devices including LG, ZTE, Kyocera and Acer. Cellebrite’s UFED is the first forensic extraction device to perform a physical NAND chip extraction. The physical extraction bypasses locked devices and does not require rooting.

Android physical extraction enables decoding of a variety of data types including call logs, contacts, SMS, MMS, chat, locations, web history, images, videos, audio, text files and deleted data. Extraction and decoding is also possible for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections and geotagging data for photos. The extracted and decoded date can be presented in a report that can be used as evidence in a court of law.

The UFED is a portable, standalone solution for the extraction of critical data such as phonebook, pictures, videos, text messages, call logs and other information from more than 1,200 models. Cellebrite's UFED system supports 95 percent of cell phones in the market, including smartphones and PDA devices. UFED is compatible with all wireless service providers in the United States and supports all known device interfaces. The UFED stores hundreds of phonebook and content items onto a removable SD card or USB flash drive; it can then be brought to the forensic lab for review and verification. Included with the UFED system is a Report Manager software application that can save, print, search and analyze data. Data is extracted in a strict read-only process, without modifying the source device. MD5 hash algorithm ensure data integrity for the courtroom.