Israeli phone hacking company faces court fight over sales to Hong Kong

"The workers inside the company didn't join to help the Chinese dictatorship," says one human rights lawyer.

Human rights advocates filed a new court petition against the Israeli phone hacking company Cellebrite, urging Israel’s ministry of defense to halt the firm’s exports to Hong Kong, where security forces have been using the technology in crackdowns against dissidents as China takes greater control.

In July, police court filings revealed that Cellebrite’s phone hacking technology has been used to break into 4,000 phones of Hong Kong citizens, including prominent pro-democracy politician and activist Joshua Wong. He subsequently launched an online petition to end Cellebrite’s sales to Hong Kong, which gained 35,000 signatures.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/08/25/1007617/israeli-phone-hacking-company-faces-court-fight-over-sales-to-hong-kong/

#Asia #HongKong #Cellebrite

Revealed: Israeli Firm Provided Phone-hacking Services to Saudi Arabia

A representative of Cellebrite, which states that it has complied with the rules, flew to Riyadh from London last November, and at the request of the Saudi prosecutor’s office hacked into a Samsung cellphone

In November of last year, a representative of the Israeli firm Cellebrite landed at King Khaled International Airport in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. The man, a foreign national whose identity is known to TheMarker, Haaretz’s sister publication, arrived on a commercial flight from London to hack into a phone in the possession of the Saudi Justice Ministry. The details of the visit were agreed upon before the hacker landed.

The staff at Cellebrite demanded of the Saudis that their employee be met at the Riyadh airport by a government representative. They insisted that he pass through passport control without his passport being stamped and without an inspection of the electronic equipment that he would have with him, which they demanded would not leave his possession and only which he would use.

From there, it was agreed in advance that the hacker would be immediately taken to an isolated hotel room, where the Saudis committed not to install cameras – and where the job of hacking and copying information from a mobile cellphone was carried out. When the work was completed, Cellebrite’s representative returned to the airport and flew back to London.

Cellebrite is not the only Israeli company to provide hacking or other cybersecurity services to the Saudi kingdom, but it is apparently the only one that does so without any oversight from the Israeli Defense Ministry.

👀 👉🏼 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/tech-news/.premium-revealed-israeli-firm-provided-phone-hacking-services-to-saudi-arabia-1.9161374

👀 👉🏼 https://twitter.com/haaretzcom/status/1306233686761889798

#israel #hacking #samsung #cellebrite #saudiarabia
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_DE
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_EN
📡@BlackBox_Archiv
📡@NoGoolag

Israeli Spy Tech Firm Says It Can Break Into Signal App Previously Considered Safe From Hacking

Cellebrite claims its tech can now crack Signal, which is regarded as the most encrypted app and is commonly used by journalists to communicate with sources

Israeli phone-hacking firm Cellebrite can now break into Signal, an encrypted app considered safe from external snooping, it claimed in a blog post on Thursday. Meanwhile, a U.S. report revealed Friday that American school districts have also bought the firm’s technology.

Cellebrite’s phone-hacking technology is intended for law enforcement agencies and is sold across the world. However, critics have long slammed the company for selling its wares to states with poor human rights records, from Indonesia and Venezuela to Belarus and Saudi Arabia.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/tech-news/.premium-israeli-spy-tech-firm-says-it-can-break-into-signal-app-previously-considered-safe-1.9368581

https://www.cellebrite.com/en/blog/cellebrites-new-solution-for-decrypting-the-signal-app/

#signal #cellebrite #decrypting #app
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_DE
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_EN
📡@NoGoolag
📡@BlackBox

Signal app's Moxie says it's possible to sabotage Cellebrite's phone-probing tools with a booby-trapped file
https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/21/signal_cellebrite

Exploiting vulnerabilities in Cellebrite UFED and Physical Analyzer from an app's perspective
https://signal.org/blog/cellebrite-vulnerabilities


#cellebrite

Signal's Cellebrite Hack Is Already Causing Grief for the Law

https://gizmodo.com/signals-cellebrite-hack-is-already-causing-grief-for-th-1846773797


#cellebrite #signal #cops

LockUp

Android application that will monitor the device for signs for attempts to image it using known forensic tools like the Cellebrite UFED.

https://github.com/mbkore/lockup

https://blog.korelogic.com/blog/2020/06/29/cellebrite_good_times_come_on


#lockup #Cellebrite #cops

I Have a Lot to Say About Signal’s Cellebrite Hack | Center for Internet and Society
https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2021/05/i-have-lot-say-about-signal%E2%80%99s-cellebrite-hack

#Signal #Cellebrite #MobileForensics

Australian police and policing
Services Australia pays $1.2m for controversial spyware for fraud investigations
Federal agency refuses to say which programs, such as jobseeker, Medicare or the disability pension, it uses Cellebrite technology to probe

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/oct/14/services-australia-pays-12m-for-controversial-spyware-for-investigations

#cellebrite #australia #spyware

#israel #idf #nso #surveillance #cellebrite

Wipeout! Detecting Android Factory Resets – The Binary Hick – 2021

During testing the devices were wiped using two different methods:  via the Android UI and via Recovery.  After the wipes, the phones were setup as both new and restored from backups.
As far as tools, a few different ones were used:
DB Browser for SQLite (3.12.2)
Autopsy (4.17.0)
Cellebrite UFED (7.45.1.43)
Cellebrite Physical Analyzer (7.46.0.64)
TextMate for macOS (2.0.19)
Android Triage Tool (1.2)

#Cellebrite #UFED

Some recent cases of Spanish government mafias using israeli #spyware against other gangs or population.
Some Spanish politicians including the president and the minister of war were also targeted by other country government mafias
#pegasus #cellebrite


Hacienda adquiere un 'software' israelí para cribar datos en el móvil de los contribuyentes
https://theobjective.com/economia/2024-01-11/hacienda-software-espia-israel-contribuyente/

La CNMC usa en secreto un 'software' policial israelí para clonar móviles de empresarios
https://theobjective.com/espana/2023-07-06/cnmc-software-cellebrite-clonar-moviles/

La UE rechaza investigar el 'caso Pegasus' porque ya está en los tribunales de España
https://theobjective.com/espana/tribunales/2023-12-12/ue-pegasus-tribunales-espana/

#cellebrite spyware claiming they can't violate #grapheneOS since 2022

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24833831-cellebrite-android-document-april-2024

“A Digital Prison”: Surveillance and the suppression of civil society in Serbia

"Amnesty International’s analysis led to two remarkable discoveries. Firstly, forensic traces revealed that a Cellebrite product had been used to unlock his device. Cellebrite, whose forensic tool allows the extraction of all data on a device and which is used by police departments around the world, claim that they have strict policies to prevent misuse of their product; yet, this discovery provides clear evidence of a journalist’s phone being targeted without any form of due process"

"The second finding of the analysis was even more extraordinary. Amnesty International found traces of a previously unknown form of spyware, which it has named ‘NoviSpy’. NoviSpy allows for capturing sensitive personal data from a target’s phone after infection and provides the ability to turn on the phone’s microphone or camera remotely. "

#NoviSpy #Cellebrite #Serbia

“A Digital Prison”: Surveillance and the suppression of civil society in Serbia

"Amnesty International’s analysis led to two remarkable discoveries. Firstly, forensic traces revealed that a Cellebrite product had been used to unlock his device. Cellebrite, whose forensic tool allows the extraction of all data on a device and which is used by police departments around the world, claim that they have strict policies to prevent misuse of their product; yet, this discovery provides clear evidence of a journalist’s phone being targeted without any form of due process"

"The second finding of the analysis was even more extraordinary. Amnesty International found traces of a previously unknown form of spyware, which it has named ‘NoviSpy’. NoviSpy allows for capturing sensitive personal data from a target’s phone after infection and provides the ability to turn on the phone’s microphone or camera remotely. "

#NoviSpy #Cellebrite #Serbia

Cellebrite to acquire mobile testing firm Corellium in $200 million deal | CyberScoop

Security technology company Cellebrite has announced plans to acquire Florida-based mobile testing startup Corellium for $170 million in cash, with an additional $20 million converted to equity at closing and the potential for $30 million more based on performance milestones.

The Israel-headquartered Cellebrite, known for its forensic equipment that unlocks smartphones, said the acquisition would enhance its capabilities for the accelerated identification of mobile vulnerabilities and exploits. The company’s technology often leverages unknown vulnerabilities, including zero-day exploits, to access encrypted data stored on mobile devices.

#Cellebrite #Corelium #MobileForensics

Cellebrite: How Your Smartphone Is Hacked? | by Hipeople | Jun, 2025 | Medium

Introduction
Cellebrite UFED is a tool designed for in-depth analysis of data on mobile devices, which is very useful in forensics.

What can Cellebrite UFED do?
Practically everything you can imagine in a cyber investigation. UFED can recover messages, calls, photos, videos, geolocation data, and even deleted files that the owner tried to erase. It can even decrypt encrypted chats in apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram, or Signal. This tool also bypasses screen locks, from PIN codes to biometrics.

UFED can connect to devices via USB, Wi-Fi, or even Bluetooth, depending on the model and settings. For many Android devices, it works without USB debugging enabled, which is obviously a big plus.

Via @technical_private_cat
#Cellebrite

Join criminal lawyer Nick Hanna as he takes a deep dive into the Israeli intelligence giant, Cellebrite, and the widespread use of its products by law enforcement and spy agencies, militaries and corporations around the world.

0:00 Intro
1:42 What is #Cellebrite?
2:17 Cellebrite's close ties with the israeli army
2:48 What is #Unit8200?
6:21 Cellebrite x Unit 8200
8:22 Involvement in Gaza?
10:44 Use by repressive regimes
12:40 What can Cellebrite products do?
19:30 Use in Australia
33:49 What happens with the data?
36:00 Is Cellebrite collecting all of the data?
41:57 Recommendations
45:13 Outro