‘Israeli’ Firm Cellebrite Sold Phone-hacking Tools to Ugandan Regime

By Staff, Agencies

‘Israeli’ cyber company Cellebrite sold technology for hacking into cellphones to the Uganda Police Force, despite reports revealing extensive human right violations by the country’s police.

Cellebrite, which specializes in developing tools for digital forensic investigations, has not denied the sale but claims it is scrupulous about legal and ethical use of its products.

The company’s flagship product is a technology called UFED, which enables enforcement authorities to hack into password-protected cell phones and download the information stored on them.

Cellebrite, which is headed by CEO Yossi Carmil, claims its tools are sold only to police and security organizations for the purpose of fighting serious crime and terrorism.

The local supplier also revealed that the Uganda Police Force uses UFED-Cloud Analyzer, enabling extraction of a detainee’s data from online storage services like Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and Apple’s iCloud. Though Cellebrite publications explain that remote access is possible only if the suspect provides the password, in actuality the user of the system is able to extract the data from all the cloud services installed on the hacked phone.

In April of last year, Cellebrite also held a digital forensic investigation workshop for the Uganda Wildlife Authority, a government agency. The workshop included a Cellebrite Certified Operator Course for extracting data from cellphones “in a forensically sound manner using UFED.”