Cellebrite partnership brings mobile forensics course to Salve Regina

DAVID SMITH, the chairman and director of Salve Regina University's Administration in Justice and Homeland Security graduate program, said Thursday that the Newport-based school was one of two in New England to be chosen to become an official partner of Cellebrite, the firm that the FBI used to break into the iPhone of one of the San Bernadino, Calif., shooters. / COURTESY R.I. EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY
DAVID SMITH, the chairman and director of Salve Regina University's Administration in Justice and Homeland Security graduate program, said Thursday that the Newport-based school was one of two in New England to be chosen to become an official partner of Cellebrite, the firm that the FBI used to break into the iPhone of one of the San Bernadino, Calif., shooters. / COURTESY R.I. EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY

NEWPORT – Salve Regina University is one of two higher educational institutions in New England to be named an official partner of Cellebrite, a designer and manufacturer of hardware and software for mobile forensics.

Cellebrite is the company the FBI turned to when it needed help getting into the iPhone of Syed Rizwan Farook, one of two people involved in the murder of 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., last year, after Apple refused to unlock it.

The partnership will allow Salve Regina to add a Certificate of Graduate Studies in Mobile Forensics to its Administration of Justice and Homeland Security graduate program, which will be offered for the first time starting in January. The three-credit course will utilize the university’s new forensics lab, as well as Cellebrite equipment that was shipped to the university.

“This is a prestigious opportunity for Salve Regina,” said David Smith, chairman and director of the Administration in Justice and Homeland Security graduate program. “In the past, students had to be sent out to distant lands to get this type of certification.”

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Smith said he learned about Cellebrite through Avi Nevel of Nevel International LLC, which was established to assist companies with their international business goals. Smith described Nevel as one of the most active and successful Rhode Island business liaisons for Israel.

Nevel set up a meeting of 16 companies from Israel at the Mintz Levin law firm in Boston and invited Smith to be a part of it. It was there that Smith connected with Cellebrite and learned about the Cellebrite Academic Program.

“It’s a pretty intense procedure,” Smith said of the process to be accepted into the program. “Cellebrite vets the program, the integrity of the courses and the people who teach them.”

Smith said he was excited when he received word on June 30 that Salve Regina had been accepted.

“Sister Jane [Gerety], president of Salve Regina, has made a significant investment in cybersecurity and forensics at Salve Regina, which has enabled us to explore ways to be more relevant in our degree fields,” Smith said. “We need to keep pace with the ongoing development of technology, and this puts us on the cutting edge.”

Smith said Salve Regina has been offering a CGS in Cybersecurity and Intelligence for the past eight years, and more recently a CGS in Digital Forensics for the past three semesters. He called the CGS in Mobile Forensics “one of the best tools in our toolbox.”

“We look forward to a long-standing relationship with Cellebrite, who has already demonstrated they are the best in the industry when it comes to training people on hardware and software to conduct forensics analysis of mobile devices,” Smith said.

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