Often referred to as a “Swiss army knife”, the Flipper Zero is a penetration testing
tool use for radio frequency (RF) hacking, as an open-source gadget for interacting
with wireless protocols like RFID, NFC, Sub-GHz radio, and infrared, offering
several advantages in digital evidence acquisition for penetration testers,
particularly when viewed through the lens of the 2016 Apple v. FBI case over the
San Bernardino shooter’s encrypted iPhone 5c. The case revealed some of the challenges which law enforcement agencies encounter when policing crimes, with Apple’s refusal to create a backdoor, despite the US District Court for the Central
District of California ordering Apple to assist federal investigators in accessing
data stored in the device belonging to the San Bernardino gunman who killed 14
people.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation had to rely on third-party forensic tools like
Cellebrite for invasive, device-specific extraction that raised privacy concerns and
required physical access to compromise the phone’s secure enclave. Meanwhile,
the Flipper Zero’s portability enables investigators to discreetly capture and replay
signals from access control systems-such as cloning RFID badges or emulating
key fobs used by suspects-without alerting targets and it has authorization for
software use. Though some states, such as Canada and Brazil, have clearly
opposed civilian use of Flipper Zero and are contemplating steps and policies for
the device to be used only by legitimate entities for security reasons.

Flipper Zero has also been used by Russian intelligence services. From a legal
narrative, the Flipper Zero’s utility in evidence acquisition resides at the
intersection of the protections of privacy, as enshrined inter alia in ECHR Article
8 for the European Union, the protections of the Fourth Amendment, the All Writs
Act for the United States, and the evolving jurisprudence on digital search and
seizure. Thus, the Flipper Zero (or any other similar device), under a robust legal
framework, could promote proportionality; rather than seeking broad, invasive
access to encrypted communications, as in Apple v. FBI, investigators could target
specific, low-privacy physical vectors with a narrower intrusion that satisfies both
investigative necessity and constitutional scrutiny. In this way, the device could
represent a legally defensible evolution in digital forensics: effective, warrant
efficient, and privacy-respecting evidence acquisition that avoids the zero-sum
conflict between security and surveillance.

1. An Alternative Route for Evidence Acquisition
   In a case like Apple v. FBI, where there was no direct way to unlock the phone
   without Apple’s help, Flipper Zero could open alternative routes to gather
   evidence: nearby access cards, gate remotes, Internet of Things (IoT) devices on
   the same home or office network, or RFID/NFC/Sub-GHz entry systems,
   collecting data that could link the suspect to a specific location and time without
   breaking the phone’s encryption.

2. Field Triage and Rapid On-Site Response
   Based on its size, Flipper Zero allows investigators to quickly scan a scene to
   detect readable devices, capture radio signal “fingerprints”, or create an inventory
   of connected wireless tools. This helps investigators prioritize which devices to
   seize or seek targeted search warrants for, rather than waiting for complex
   software solutions from manufacturers.

3. Retrieval of Secondary but Verifiable Evidence
   The device facilitates the duplicating and storing a digital entry card, capturing
   radio frequencies used by a garage remote, and detecting NFC tags on peripheral
   components. Such evidence can be documented in forensic reports and supported
   by timestamps or logs, providing circumstantial but valuable digital evidence
   when direct phone access is impossible

4. Technical Verification of Physical Exploitation Possibilities
   Flipper Zero allows testing of cards, GPIO pins, and USB-HID signals, enabling
   specialists to assess whether any physical or external pathway could be used to
   extract information or lawfully implant access tools under a court order.

The controversy centered on Apple’s refusal to create a “master key” or
“backdoor” that it argued would compromise the security and privacy of all its
users globally. While the Flipper Zero itself is not specifically designed to crack
modern, high-security Apple encryption, its existence as an accessible, versatile
hardware/software tool highlights that the market and open-source community
continually develop new methods for interacting with, bypassing, or exploiting
digital and physical security-underscoring the argument that governments might
eventually find third-party technological solutions without requiring
manufacturers to fundamentally weaken their products’ security for law
enforcement access, which is ultimately what happened when the FBI withdrew
its request after a third party (speculated to be Cellebrite) successfully unlocked
the device.

Read

1. BBC News, Israel’s Cellebrite linked to FBI’s iPhone hack attempt, 23 March 2016, available at
   https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35883441
2. For a basic presentation of the characteristics and specifications see https://www.michigan.gov/msp//media/Project/Websites/msp/iod/cyber/CS-01-2025_Flipper_Zero.pdf?rev=2abcff56c1284dfbad4948cd73efae49.
3. For a general discussion regarding the case of Apple v FBI see inter alia Congressional Research Service, Court Ordered Access to Smart Phones: In Brief February 23,
   https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/PDF/R44396/R44396.3.pdf and Amicus Brief – EPIC, Apple v FBI available at https://epic.org/documents/apple-v-fbi-2/. For the mission of FBI Cyber see FBI, The Cyber Threat, https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/cyber#:~:text=The%20FBI%20is%20the%20lead,cyber%20activities%2C%20wherever%20they%20are.
4. Bill Budington and Alexis Hancock, Restricting Flipper is a Zero Accountability Approach to Security: Canadian Government Response to Car Hacking, March, 28, 2024. https://www.eff.org/ar/deeplinks/2024/03/restricting flipper-zero-accountability-approach-security-canadian-government?language=ar.
5. Bill Budington and Veridiana Alimonti, Flipper Zero Devices Being Seized by Brazil’s Telecom Agency, March 9, 2023, available at https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/flipper-zero-devices-being-seized-brazils-telecom-agency.
6. Pieter Arntz, Canada revisits decision to ban Flipper Zero, March 22, 2024 https://www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/2024/03/canada-revisits-decision-to-ban-flipper-zero
7. Mikael Simovits, Flipper Zero – Zero Trust: Beware of Geek Bearing Gifts, SIMOVITS SJÖGREN, FLIPPER ZERO – ZERO TRUST, SEC-T, STOCKHOLM, (2023), who highlights the need to pay attention to the use of this tool due to its Russian origin. “Flipper Zero is a Russian hacker tool used by penetration testers and security researchers for breaching physical access solutions. In the light of the political situation in Russia and the current conflict in Ukraine there are reasons to be really careful about the use of this tool.” And “The assessment is that there is an even chance that Flipper Zero has links to Russian Intelligence Services.”, available at https://simovits.com/wpcontent/uploads/2023/09/Flipper-Zero-Zero-Trust-or-Beware-of-Geek-Bearing-Gifts-2023.pdf
8. European Convention on Human Rights – Article 8, “1 Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence. 2 There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.” https://fra.europa.eu/en/law reference/european-convention-human-rights-article-8-0. Note that Flipper Zero has been entered on the list of permitted items for trading in the European Union, https://sapsan-sklep.pl/en/blogs/articles/flipper-zero-is-legal-8-answers-to-your-questions
9. The All Writs Act is a United States federal statute, codified at 28 U.S.C. § 1651, which authorizes the United States federal courts to “issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law”, available at https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1651
10. United States Courts, What Does the Fourth Amendment Mean? “The Constitution, through the Fourth Amendment, protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. The Fourth Amendment, however, is not a guarantee against all searches and seizures, but only those that are deemed unreasonable under the law.”https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-resources/about-educational-outreach/activityresources/what-does-fourth-amendment-mean