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January 13, 2006
AccessData Password Recovery
AccessData, headquartered in Lindon, Utah, (www.accessdata.com), licenses several products to help investigators seize and examine digital evidence. Their Password Recovery Toolkit product is able to "recover passwords from multiple applications and encryption types." Basically, this product breaks passwords -- and apparently it works. Lydell Wall, a detective with the High-Tech Crimes Unit in the Stanislaus County Sherriff's Department used it to to obtain key evidence in the Scott Peterson trial:
"Some of the most damning evidence against Scott Peterson was not found in DNA samples or in the boat he used to dispose of his wife's body. Rather it was located in his cell phone records and on the hard drive of his computer..." (AccessData brochure)
Lydell used AccessData products to obtain that data.
This is all great for legitimate use, but it makes me nervous. What about use by computer criminals? AccessData conducts multi-day seminars to teach users how to break into Windows and other computers, password protected databases, even Acrobat documents. I asked if they vet the backgrounds of the attendees to their classes and they do not.
Products like this are like guns and explosives. Yes, they should be readily available for legitimate use, but shouldn't there be some kind of control over who buys and is trained?
Posted by DavidK at January 13, 2006 12:12 PM | Permalink