Saudi Press

Saudi Arabia and the world
Thursday, Oct 02, 2025

Signal founder: I hacked police phone-cracking tool Cellebrite

Signal founder: I hacked police phone-cracking tool Cellebrite

Moxie Marlinspike accuses surveillance firm of being ‘linked to persecution’ around the world

The CEO of the messaging app Signal claims to have hacked the phone-cracking tools used by police in Britain and around the world to extract information from seized devices.

In an online post, Moxie Marlinspike, the security researcher who founded Signal in 2013, detailed a series of vulnerabilities in the surveillance devices, made by the Israeli company Cellebrite.

Marlinspike says those weaknesses make it easy for anyone to plant code on a phone that would take over Cellebrite’s hardware if it was used to scan the device. It would not only be able to silently affect all future investigations, but also to rewrite the data the tools had saved from previous analyses.

Marlinspike has been an outspoken critic of Cellebrite since the company claimed to be able to “break Signal encryption”, a claim the hacker has dismissed. “Cellebrite makes software to automate physically extracting and indexing data from mobile devices,” he says. “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.

“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.”

Police forces around the world use Cellebrite’s technology to help in digital investigations, particularly when they have managed to get hold of a physical device owned by a suspect or person of interest. While Cellebrite has been linked with attempts to bypass encrypted devices, the majority of its tools are built to allow digital forensics teams to extract information from unlocked, powered-on devices, and automate the sort of searches they could theoretically do by hand on the phone itself.

But through reverse-engineering one Cellebrite device (Marlinspike claims he acquired the device “when I saw a small package fall off a truck ahead of me”), Signal’s founder says he found more than 100 security vulnerabilities, just one of which could modify “not just the Cellebrite report being created in that scan, but also all previous and future generated Cellebrite reports from all previously scanned devices and all future scanned devices.”

“Any app could contain such a file, and until Cellebrite is able to accurately repair all vulnerabilities in its software with extremely high confidence, the only remedy a Cellebrite user has is to not scan devices,” Marlinspike says. In a winking suggestion that his company has placed such a booby-trap inside its own app, Marlinspike adds that “in completely unrelated news, upcoming versions of Signal will be periodically fetching files to place in app storage. These files are never used for anything inside Signal and never interact with Signal software or data, but they look nice, and aesthetics are important in software.”

In a statement, Cellebrite said: “Cellebrite enables customers to protect and save lives, accelerate justice and preserve privacy in legally sanctioned investigations. We have strict licensing policies that govern how customers are permitted to use our technology and do not sell to countries under sanction by the US, Israel or the broader international community. Cellebrite is committed to protecting the integrity of our customers’ data, and we continually audit and update our software in order to equip our customers with the best digital intelligence solutions available.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

Saudi Press
0:00
0:00
Close
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
UK, Canada, and Australia Officially Recognise Palestine in Historic Shift
New Eye Drops Show Promise in Replacing Reading Glasses for Presbyopia
Dubai Property Boom Shows Strain as Flippers Get Buyer’s Remorse
Top AI Researchers Are Heading Back to China as U.S. Struggles to Keep Pace
JWST Data Brings TRAPPIST-1e Closer to Earth-Like Habitability
UAE-US Stargate Project Poised to Make Abu Dhabi a Global AI Powerhouse
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Kuwait opens bidding for construction of three cities to ease housing crunch.
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
Turkish authorities seize leading broadcaster amid fraud and tax investigation
Qatari prime minister says Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages
Apple Introduces Ultra-Thin iPhone Air, Enhanced 17 Series and New Health-Focused Wearables
Big Oil Slashes Jobs and Investments Amid Prolonged Low Crude Prices
Social Media Access Curtailed in Turkey After CHP Calls for Rallies Following Police Blockade of Istanbul Headquarters
Did the Houthis disrupt the internet in the Middle East? Submarine cables cut in the Red Sea
Gold Could Reach Nearly $5,000 if Fed Independence Is Undermined, Goldman Sachs Warns
Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay Secure Places at 2026 World Cup
Trump Administration Advances Plans to Rebrand Pentagon as Department of War Instead of the Fake Term Department of Defense
Tether Expands into Gold Sector with Profit-Driven Diversification
Trump’s New War – and the ‘Drug Tyrant’ Fearing Invasion: ‘1,200 Missiles Aimed at Us’
At the Parade in China: Laser Weapons, 'Eagle Strike,' and a Missile Capable of 'Striking Anywhere in the World'
Information Warfare in the Age of AI: How Language Models Become Targets and Tools
Israeli Airstrike in Yemen Kills Houthi Prime Minister
After the Shock of Defeat, Iranians Yearn for Change
YouTube Altered Content by Artificial Intelligence – Without Permission
Iran Faces Escalating Water Crisis as Protests Spread
More Than Half a Million Evacuated as Typhoon Kajiki Heads for Vietnam
HSBC Switzerland Ends Relationships with Over 1,000 Clients from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, and Egypt
Sharia Law Made Legally Binding in Austria Despite Warnings Over 'Incompatible' Values
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Miles Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
Cristiano Ronaldo Makes Surprise Stop at New Hong Kong Museum
Zelenskyy to Visit Washington after Trump–Putin Summit Yields No Agreement
×