Cellebrite

In April 2011, the Michigan chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union questioned whether Michigan State Police (MSP) troopers were using Cellebrite UFEDs to conduct unlawful searches of citizens' cell phones.[5] Following its refusal to grant the MCLU's 2008 Freedom of Information Act request unless the organization paid $544,000 to retrieve the reports, MSP issued a statement claiming that it honored the Fourth Amendment in searching mobile devices.[6]

In March 2016, it was reported that Cellebrite offered to unlock an iPhone involved in the FBI–Apple encryption dispute.[7] Later, after the FBI announced it had successfully accessed the iPhone thanks to a third party, a press report claimed Cellebrite had assisted with unlocking the device,[8] which an FBI source denied.[9]

A 2017 data dump suggests Cellebrite sold its data extraction products to Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Russia.[10]

On 16 September 2020, a report was released claiming that an Israeli firm provided Saudi Arabia with technological services to hack a mobile phone. The staff at Cellebrite demanded Saudis to send a government representative to meet one of their employees at the Riyadh airport. Following the demand, a representative of Cellebrite traveled to Riyadh in November 2019 for an hacking attempt into a phone in the possession of a Saudi Justice Ministry employee. The Cellebrite representative called for the authorities to let him pass through passport control without getting his passport stamped or his electronic equipment being checked, while remaining only under his possession. The hacker was supposed to head to an isolated hotel room from the airport, where the process was planned to be executed without any electronic surveillance. The Cellebrite representative then returned to the Riyadh airport to fly back to London.[11]

In August 2020, it was reported that Cellebrite sold its services to the Hong Kong Police Force for use in unlocking phones of detained demonstrators during the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests.[12] As of October 7 2020, the company announced that it would stop selling its solutions and services to customers in Hong Kong and China as a result of a change in U.S. regulations. [13]

Cellebrite offers a wide range of solutions as part of the company’s Digital Intelligence platform that assists in both criminal and enterprise investigations. The products fall into three categories: Access & Decode, Analyze & Review, and Manage & Control, and are designed to better equip investigators and accelerate the time to solve cases that involve digital evidence.

Cellebrite UFED: used to unlock devices, perform advanced unlocks, perform logical/full file system/physical extractions, and perform selective extraction of app data and cloud tokens.

Cellebrite Physical Analyzer: enables the examination of multiple data sources from the broadest range of mobile applications, digital devices, warrant returns and the cloud.

Cellebrite UFED Cloud: enables the extraction of data hosted in cloud-based applications, services and web pages.

Cellebrite Frontliner: allows investigators to collect digital data in real-time at the scene of the crime.

Cellebrite Responder: allows users to perform selective or full physical data extraction from any location at any point in time.

Cellebrite Premium: enables investigators to bypass or determine locks and perform a full file system extraction on any iOS device, or a physical extraction or full file system (File-Based Encryption) extraction on many high-end Android devices

Cellebrite Seeker: expedites the process of collecting, accessing, analyzing, and reporting video footage.

Cellebrite Macquisition: designed specifically for Macs to triage, perform live data acquisition, targeted data collection, and forensic imaging.

Cellebrite Pathfinder: uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to automatically analyze collected data to surface evidence and leads.

Cellebrite Reader: allows investigators to conduct advanced searches within data already collected and analyzed, selectively view data, and share reports with team members for collaboration.

Cellebrite BlackLight: enables data analysis for both Windows and Mac computers.

Cellebrite Crypto Tracer: allows users to trace and de-anonymize cryptocurrency transactions for investigations that involve cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

Cellebrite Commander: allows investigators to manage all deployed devices and systems under a single central dashboard.

Cellebrite Guardian: a case management and workflow orchestration solution that consolidates all analysis into a single central dashboard for collaboration and lifecycle management purposes.

Cellebrite claims to have been the first in the mobile forensics industry to have achieved a number of smartphone forensic breakthroughs. These include physical extraction and decoding of BlackBerry flash memory (going beyond mass storage or IPD backups), Android user/pattern lock bypass for physical extraction and decoding, physical extraction from phones with Chinese chipsets (including MediaTek and Spreadtrum), TomTom GPS trip-log decryption and decoding, iOS device unlocking, and other research and development.

Cellebrite claims to maintain the integrity of digital evidence:

• All cable connectors from subject (source) side act as a write blocker, being read-only via the onboard hardware chipset.
• Although a Faraday shielded bag, included in all ruggedized UFED kits, blocks external electromagnetic fields and wireless radio signals, the UFED has a SIM card cloning capability which also isolates the phone from the wireless network.
• Read-only boot loaders keep data from being altered or deleted during a physical extraction.