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Israeli Cellebrite hacked Signal messenger, and Signal hacked Cellebrite in response

At the end of last year, Israeli developer Cellebrite software for hacking mobile devices announced that they had managed to hack the secure messenger Signal and gain access to data in the Physical Analyzer. This program is used to analyze data obtained using the UFED software and hardware complex. In response, the Signal developers said that for this you need to have physical access to the unlocked smartphone, and the program itself simply takes screenshots of the application. Now it became known that the messenger team itself hacked UFED and Physical Analyzer.

According to the vc.ru publication, Signal representatives received a full-fledged hardware and software complex at their disposal and carefully studied it. In particular, they discovered many vulnerabilities, with the help of which it is possible to gain full access to all Cellebrite forensic reports on a computer, as well as to silently edit them. In addition, it was revealed that Cellebrite was illegally using Apple’s libraries, which could lead to legal action.

Several conclusions can be drawn from all this:

  1. UFED and Physical Analyzer are written for Windows.
  2. UFED backs up the device.
  3. Physical Analyzer analyzes the data from the backup and displays it in a readable form.
  4. Cellebrite software does not have industry standard exploit protection.

“You can execute code that will change not only the generated Cellebrite report, but all previous and future reports for all devices in any way: insert or delete text, email, photos, contacts, files or any other data without any trace in the tags time or checksum change, ”says the Signal blog.

The sheer number of vulnerabilities could cast doubt on the veracity of Cellebrite’s reports. As a “cherry on the cake”, the Signal developers announced the appearance of some new files in the messenger. Apparently, the application will have protection against Cellebrite tools.

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