The ElcomSoft iPhone Password Breaker is a password recovery tool that focuses on unlocking iPhone and iPod Touch backups. Using a straightforward list of potential passwords, the program uses a graphics processing unit (GPU) from either NVIDIA or ATI to accelerate the process.

"The new password recovery tool unlocks encrypted backups orders of magnitude faster than traditional CPU-only algorithms," said ElcomSoft, adding that multiple video cards can be strung together to speed things up still further.

The software works on a local PC without having to have iTunes installed. It supports both original and jailbroken devices, and will restore the password-protected backups directly to an iPhone or iPod Touch device. The backups can also be loaded into Oxygen Forensics, a tool provided by Oxygen Software specifically for the forensic analysis of smart phones and PDAs.

Password-protected backups were introduced with Apple iTunes 8.1. The backups, which require version 3 of the iPhone/iPod operating system to work, can contain phonebooks, call logs, SMS archives, calendars, camera snapshots, voicemail and email account settings, in addition to the device's web browsing history. They can even include information about the latest GPS location of the iPod or phone.

The prerelease version of the software will be available free of charge for a limited period.