Most US Cabinet Departments have bought Cellebrite iPhone hacking tool

A new report claims that 14 out of 15 US Cabinet Departments bought Cellebrite, the iOS unlocking technology, with the company saying 2,800 of its customers work in the government.

Cellebrite has famously been unlocking iPhones for many years, and the data extraction app itself has had security vulnerabilities. Nonetheless, it has been widely used around the world - and even in US public schools.

According to The Intercept, that reach has extended to all but one of the USA's Cabinet Departments. The publication has not identified the sole department not using Cellebrite.

The Intercept claims that Federal purchasing records and Cellebrite securities documents seen by the publication, also show that several other federal agencies. Government buyers of Cellebrite include:

US Fish and Wildlife Service
Department of Agriculture
Department of Education
Department of Veterans Affairs
Housing and Urban Development
Social Security Administration
US Agency for International Development
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

In those securities filings, the Cellebrite company reported having over 2,800 government customers in North America. Also that its clients include 6 out of 10 of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, and 6 out of 10 of the largest oil refiners.

Separately, the FBI has recently been reported to have evaluated buying the NSO Group's more powerful Pegasus software, for domestic surveillance.

26 Comments

Mac4mac 17 comments · 2 Years

About 2 years ago

You do know Apple themselves use the devices, not to hack, but to “device to device” copy.

Obviously the software may not be exactly the same. There’s an irony in there somewhere!

macbear01 43 comments · 19 Years

Mac4mac said:

You do know Apple themselves use the devices, not to hack, but to “device to device” copy.
Obviously the software may not be exactly the same. There’s an irony in there somewhere!

I’m curious what evidence you have of this because I find it very difficult to believe that Apple would need a third-party vendor’s tool to copy their own product.

peteo 402 comments · 15 Years

Mac4mac said:

You do know Apple themselves use the devices, not to hack, but to “device to device” copy.
Obviously the software may not be exactly the same. There’s an irony in there somewhere!

Yes apple (well one of it's shell companies) 100% does have at least one of these. They use it to learn of the exploits Cellebrite is using so they can fix them.

22july2013 3736 comments · 11 Years

I'm pretty sure Cellebrite is the company name, NOT the product name. The product name is UFED Premium, I think. I googled it.

Also, I suspect that you can't buy a UFED Premium. It's probably leased, and has to be returned at end of lease. But I'm just using common sense here.

ihatescreennames 1977 comments · 19 Years

macbear01 said:

Mac4mac said:

You do know Apple themselves use the devices, not to hack, but to “device to device” copy.
Obviously the software may not be exactly the same. There’s an irony in there somewhere!

I’m curious what evidence you have of this because I find it very difficult to believe that Apple would need a third-party vendor’s tool to copy their own product.

When I worked at Apple Retail we used to use a Cellebrite to transfer contacts and other data from non-iPhones to iPhones as part of the setup process. The process was a little clunky and it didn’t always work but all retail stores had the device. The units I used did not look like the one pictured in this article. I also have no knowledge of if they are currently in use at Apple Stores, but they definitely were in the past.