Russia Used Cellebrite UFED to Break Into Human Rights Activist’s iPhone

The Citizen Lab–backed investigation and a Russian Ministry of Interior forensic report show that Russian authorities used Cellebrite’s UFED to extract data from opposition activist Andrey Pivovarov’s iPhone in June 2021 despite Cellebrite’s prior claims of severing ties with Russia; the extraction included WhatsApp, Telegram, and Viber data and keyword searches for political figures, and artifacts (a Cellebrite Host ID) link the extraction to known Cellebrite tooling and possible subsequent targeting of regime opponents abroad.