The newly developed engine is more robust and significantly more future-proof compared to the browser-based implementation we used in previous builds. We scheduled it for a major update, and would introduce it with the next major release of ECX in a few weeks. A small alteration of one of the protocols used by Google has instantly rendered Elcomsoft Cloud Explorer unusable.īy the time this happened, we’ve already developed a new, phone-based authentication engine. In fact, this exact thing had happened just a few days ago. Every little change that they make may (and will) break Elcomsoft Cloud Explorer, requiring another research and a rushed update. Since Web-based access to the data stored in the Google account is neither official nor documented, Google can (and does) make changes to the protocol as it pleases. Why did we need to change the authentication engine in the first place? Wasn’t the old one perfectly working? It was until a few days ago. This much-needed change has multiple positive and not-so-positive implications. Unlike prior versions of Cloud Explorer that used to authenticate as a Web browser, the new authentication engine makes use of phone-based communication protocols. The new build comes with a brand new Google authentication engine.

What exactly has changed and why, and what are the forensic implications of these changes? Bear with us to find out.Įlcomsoft Cloud Explorer 1.31 has one big change compared to the version it replaces. Under the hood, the new release has major changes that will greatly affect usage experience. A very minor update? A bunch of unnamed bug fixes and performance improvements? Not really. As you may know, we have recently updated Elcomsoft Cloud Explorer, bumping the version number from 1.30 to 1.31.

Elcomsoft cloud explorer 1.30