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Content Assessment: What the Truck? Cellebrite Vulnerabilities Highlighted by Signal Hack
Information - 95%
Insight - 95%
Relevance - 100%
Objectivity - 95%
Authority - 90%
95%
Excellent
A short percentage-based assessment of the qualitative benefit of the recent post highlighting via multiple articles the supposed vulnerabilities of Cellebrite as shared by Signal app creator Moxie Marlinspike.
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Reference: Aggregated Article Extracts on Cellebrite Vulnerabilities
Signal Hacked Cellebrite’s Phone Hacking Software Used by Law Enforcement
Article Extract via Engadget – Author Steve Dent
After the cellphone hacking company Cellebrite said it had figured out a way to access the secure messaging app Signal, Signal said in a blog post that it has turned the tables. The app’s creator Moxie Marlinspike claimed that his team obtained Cellebrite’s hacking kit and discovered several vulnerabilities. He then implied that Signal will update the app to stymie any law enforcement attempts to hack it.
Exploiting Vulnerabilities in Cellebrite UFED and Physical Analyzer from an App’s Perspective
Article Extract via Signal – Author Moxie Marlinspike
Cellebrite makes software to automate physically extracting and indexing data from mobile devices. They exist within the grey – where enterprise branding joins together with the larcenous to be called “digital intelligence.” Their customer list has included authoritarian regimes in Belarus, Russia, Venezuela, and China; death squads in Bangladesh; military juntas in Myanmar; and those seeking to abuse and oppress in Turkey, UAE, and elsewhere. A few months ago, they announced that they added Signal support to their software.
Their products have often been linked to the persecution of imprisoned journalists and activists around the world, but less has been written about what their software actually does or how it works. Let’s take a closer look. In particular, their software is often associated with bypassing security, so let’s take some time to examine the security of their own software.
Signal’s CEO Just Hacked the Cops’ Favorite Phone Cracking Tool and Became a Legend
Article Extract via Gizmodo – Author Lucas Ropac
If all of these disclosures are true, it could have pretty massive ramifications for Cellebrite. If we can assume it’s really this easy for someone to break into the company’s software and drastically alter the data that police are collecting, how certain can law enforcement be that the evidence they are collecting is actually correct? What would the legal ramifications be for the cases that have hinged on Cellebrite’s software, if its security is really so paltry? Anyone who’s been involved in a case that used this software should probably be calling their lawyer right now.
Signal says Cellebrite Phone-Hacking Tool Used by Police is Easily Hacked
Article Extract via Mashable – Author Jack Morse
Dan Tentler, the executive founder of the security company Phobos Group, explained over email that Moxie’s findings mean that it’s now incredibly risky for government agents to use Cellebrite’s products.
“What agency would you like to exploit?” he asked rhetorically. “Bait one of them into reading a phone loaded with the exploit, and have the exploit then compromise the computer the Cellebrite platform is plugged into after the fact to retrieve the files.”
In Epic Hack, Signal Developer Turns the Tables on Forensics Firm Cellebrite
Article Extract via Ars Technica – Author Dan Goodin
Cellebrite provides two software packages: The UFED breaks through locks and encryption protections to collect deleted or hidden data, and a separate Physical Analyzer uncovers digital evidence (“trace events”).
To do their job, both pieces of Cellebrite software must parse all kinds of untrusted data stored on the device being analyzed. Typically, software that is this promiscuous undergoes all kinds of security hardening to detect and fix any memory-corruption or parsing vulnerabilities that might allow hackers to execute malicious code.
“Looking at both UFED and Physical Analyzer, though, we were surprised to find that very little care seems to have been given to Cellebrite’s own software security,” [Moxie] Marlinspike wrote. “Industry-standard exploit mitigation defenses are missing, and many opportunities for exploitation are present.”
Signal Gives Phone Hacking Company Cellebrite a Taste of its Own Medicine
Article Extract via TechRadar Pro – Author Mayank Sharma
To illustrate the lack of prudent security measures, in his breakdown of Cellebrite’s two main tools, Marlinspike observed that they bundle FFmpeg DLLs from 2012. He pointed out that FFmpeg has reported over two hundred vulnerabilities since then.
In addition to the security blunders, Marlinspike also observed a couple of Apple copyright violations in the apps.
Cellebrite did not respond immediately to our request for comment.
Additional Reading
- Mac and Cheese? Cellebrite Launches Endpoint Inspector
- SPAC Attack? Cellebrite Move Toward Becoming a Public Company
Source: ComplexDiscovery
