The digital intelligence product company Cellebrite has brought out a product for the extraction and analysis of data obtained from 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 analysed with data from other digital sources using advanced text, image, and video analytics engines for intelligence-gathering.
Ron Serber, Global Co-CEO, Cellebrite said: “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 weaponised systems to illicit information gathering on infrastructure and sensitive facilities’ vulnerabilities. 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.”
The firm says that law enforcement and US 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 digital evidence extraction and analysis software can provide access to data, either extracted from the physical drone or on a mobile application, to deliver digital evidence such as pictures, video, logs, journey maps based on locations and time stamps, and take-off and retrieval locations. The extracted data, including from previous journeys that was automatically deleted by the drone, can aid investigators to identify operators, and build cases.
Cellebrite’s says that its capabilities provide drone data extraction, decoding and analysis via USB connection, SD card, or remote-control application. Cellebrite’s drone forensics enable access to 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 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.
And Frank Pace, a Netherlands-based security researcher and policy advisor to law enforcement said: “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. 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.”
