EXFILES (4) H2020 Project: An Inside View from an LEA Partner

In this episode, we look at the EXFILES project once again. Today we speak with Nicolas from the National Forensic Lab for the French Gendarmerie. He talks about the challenge of extracting forensic evidence from locked phones and how the EXFILES project can help LEA's to overcome this.

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The EXFILES project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 883156

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Episode Transcript

Intro (00:01):
This is a Technikon podcast.

Peter Balint (00:08):
Our mobile phones have become devices that we carry everywhere
and which contain some of our most important data. Knowing this,
the manufacturers of these devices have guaranteed an extraordinary level
of security. As you can imagine, this is a real
benefit to the users of such devices. But there are
times when locked data has to be legitimately extracted, and

(00:31):
there's no help from the people who designed these hardware
and software entanglements. I'm Peter Balint from Technikon, and today
we continue our in-depth look at the EXFILES project. This
European 2020 endeavor focuses on these cases where law enforcement
officials need to extract data from mobile telephones to conduct

(00:51):
an investigation, and for the record, they're pretty much on
their own. That's why EXFILES is so important. In EXFILES
federal government, local law enforcement and intelligence agencies, as well
as cybersecurity experts, come together to create methods and tools
to collect the evidence they need from locked devices. Today,
we speak with Nicholas from the National Forensic Lab for

(01:12):
the French Gendarmerie. Let's have a listen. Welcome, Nicholas, and
thanks for coming on today.

Nicholas (01:21):
Yes, thank you to host this podcast.

Peter Balint (01:24):
My pleasure. The first and presumably most obvious question is
why can't the phone manufacturers help with the decryption in
these extreme cases?

Nicholas (01:33):
In my opinion, they could help , but they don't want to.
It is in their best interest to show that they
don't collaborate with law enforcement agencies. If we think about
it for a few minutes, I think it's almost like
a free advertising, like if they say we manufacture value

(01:55):
your privacy more than helping the police.

Peter Balint (01:59):
OK, so you're saying this is almost like a selling point,
maybe that, you know, we honor your security. And for us,
this is of the highest importance.

Nicholas (02:07):
Yeah, I think that's their line of defense. If i may say so.

Peter Balint (02:12):
OK. Well, that seems that seems fair. And I I
think there's some truth to that. And in EXFILES, as
I mentioned in the introduction, yeah, it's about getting data
off of phones which have been locked. And this, of course,
is a very technological process. And what what I wonder

(02:33):
about is what about changes in security? I mean, what
happens when you've expended a considerable amount of time to
circumvent current security measures and then new measures are implemented?
Is it like starting over again?

Nicholas (02:49):
Yeah, it's a real issue for us, but luckily, most
of the time we don't have to restart all of
our work. We just have to adjust our solution in
order to deal with the new security measures. But yeah,
on the other end, unfortunately, sometimes we do have to

(03:10):
start all over, and I admit it's a bit disappointing.

Peter Balint (03:15):
And I would imagine also that you really have no
idea when changes are coming. Is that is that fair
to say?

Nicholas (03:21):
Yeah, we don't have any idea like all the consumer,
we see the differences using the devices.

Peter Balint (03:29):
So in looking at the EXFILES project, a big focus
is not only addressing what to do now, but how
to prepare the next generation of forensic evidence gatherers. What
efforts are being made in EXFILES so that you could
see this through?

Nicholas (03:45):
Yeah, so one of the main points of this project
is to distribute the knowledge and the tool development. We
even have a work package dedicated to that -6- if I'm correct. Its
objective is to train forensics examiners with the tools resulting

(04:05):
of the project, and those examiners will come from the
country involved on the project, but also from other European
countries not involved originally.

Peter Balint (04:18):
OK, so this is actually a really good way to
ensure that what you're doing today is really helpful for
future generations.

Nicholas (04:28):
Yeah, I truly think so.

Peter Balint (04:30):
Now, EXFILES, this is a unique project, which I'm sure
has certainly encountered some unique challenges. Can you speak to
some of these challenges or hurdles that you've had to
overcome so far in EXFILES?

Nicholas (04:43):
In my opinion, the biggest challenge until now is the sanitary situation.
In fact, due to COVID, we were not able to
get there physically, and it's quite challenging to work and
exchange results without physical meeting. But like all of the European citizens,

(05:04):
we have to deal with this situation by gathering online via meetups,
or confcalls .

Peter Balint (05:12):
And I guess that's all you could do at this
point until you can actually get back to face to
face contact, which I would imagine in EXFILES, this is really
an important component of the project. Is this collaboration this
face to face this lab work environment?

Nicholas (05:27):
Yes, we truly hope that the sanitary situation will change and
that we could organize physical meetings with face to face work,
particularly on the hardware aspect of the project.

Peter Balint (05:40):
Exactly. And this EXFILES consortium, this is a special group
of people because it's composed of so many different kinds
of individuals or concerns and what what fields are represented here?

Nicholas (05:56):
Yes, there are a lot of different fields involved in
the project and in fact, we truly believes that is
one of her best assets. For example, we have law
enforcement agencies, both local and national intelligence services, as well
as cybersecurity experts and even academics researchers. So I think

(06:17):
with this kind of different people, we are able to
cover most of the of the aspects that we have
to deal with.

Peter Balint (06:25):
And when I look at a project, I like to
look at it and in the framework of how will
this impact the general citizen in the EU? So let's
look at EXFILES . I mean, what kind of benefit
do you think this project could have on the average
person here in Europe?

Nicholas (06:45):
I think that this project will enhance the capabilities of law
enforcement agencies to deal with encrypted phones. Therefore, it should
be easier to fight against drug traffic and criminal activities
in general. So in my opinion, it's in the best
interest of the general public in the EU.

Peter Balint (07:06):
OK, and it sounds like this just goes to sort
of overall security, especially in the computer and the cybersecurity field.
Yeah.
So in EXFILES, you represent a law enforcement agency, so
what is the role of your organization within EXFILES, specifically,

Nicholas (07:26):
The role of the french gendarmerie's cyberspace commands on this
project is we work on the reverse engineering part and
both on hardware and software approach. And as a member
of a law enforcement agency, we are on the general
meetings trying to discuss what target we'll have to deal

(07:50):
with in order to enhance our capabilities in the best
way possible for the general public.

Peter Balint (07:57):
So it sounds like this is this is a big
job to be done, but it also sounds like there
are a lot of resources that have been dedicated to
getting this done. So thank you for sharing a little
bit about your side of EXFILES today, and we wish
you much success in the future of the project.

Nicholas (08:14):
Yeah, thank you.

Peter Balint (08:15):
For more information about EXFILES, go to exfiles.eu . This
podcast has been brought to you by Technikon. The EXFILES
project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon H2020
research and innovation program under grant agreement number 883156 .