Hack reveals data company Cellebrite works with everyone from US cops to Russia
On Thursday, Vice Motherboard reported that an unnamed source provided the site with 900GB of data hacked from Cellebrite, the well-known mobile phone data extraction company.
Among other products, Cellebrite's UFED system offers "in-depth physical, file system, password, and logical extractions of evidentiary data," and is often the go-to product for law enforcement to pull data from seized phones and other devices.
In a statement, Cellebrite called this hack "illegal" and noted that "the company is not aware of any specific increased risk to customers as a result of this incident; however, my.Cellebrite account holders are advised to change their passwords as a precaution." In addition, the trove of materials contains “customer support tickets” showing that the Israeli company sells its services to countries with questionable human rights records, including Turkey, Russia, and the United Arab Emirates.
