Tablets and smartphones seized as evidence by UK Police agencies are being remotely wiped off by wrongdoers using new anti-theft softwares, new investigation claims.
According to BBC report, forces in Dorset, Cleveland, Cambridgeshire, Durham and Nottingham have all admitted of facing similar incidents whereby memory of seized devices have been remotely erased to prevent from being used as vital court evidence.
The worst affected Dorset police has confirmed the same has happened to six of the seized devices it had in custody in one year.
“There were six incidents, but we don’t know how people wiped them,” a spokesperson from the Dorset police department told BBC.
“We have cases where phones get seized, and they are not necessarily taken from an arrested person – but we don’t know the details of these cases as there is not a reason to keep records of this.”
Derbyshire police said it came across one incident of a device being remotely wiped while in police custody, however, the same didn’t impact the investigation and a conviction was secured. Cambridgeshire reported one incident, as did Durham, Cleveland and Nottingham forces.
Pen Test Partners’ digital forensics expert, Ken Munro, said if a device has a signal, it is possible to wipe it remotely. However if the seized devices are immediately put into a radio-frequency shielded bag, it will prevent any signals from getting through to them and stop any remote wipes.
Even putting the device in a microwave will work, as it acts as a shield against mobile or tablet signals, but make sure the microwave is turned off, Munro added.
