US government agencies use Cellebrite to crack phones

An increasingly broad range of US government agencies - including the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Social Security Administration, and the departments of Agriculture, Education, and Housing and Urban Development - are able to break into encrypted phones and copy their data using technology provided by Cellebrite. At its IPO in August 2022, Cellebrite claimed 2,800 government customers in North America as well as six of the world’s ten largest pharmaceutical companies and six of the ten largest oil refiners. Like the Commerce Department-blacklisted spyware company NSO Group, Cellebrite is based in Israel. The US government is thought to be an increasingly important customer as the company comes under fire for sales to authoritarian countries.
US government agencies use Cellebrite to crack phones
Publication: The Intercept
Writer: Mara Hvistendahl