{"id":281589,"date":"2026-06-25T10:57:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T14:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/25\/russia-uses-cellebrite-to-break-into-human-rights-activists-phone-even-after-cancellation-of-contract\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T12:10:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T16:10:14","slug":"russia-uses-cellebrite-to-break-into-human-rights-activists-phone-even-after-cancellation-of-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/25\/russia-uses-cellebrite-to-break-into-human-rights-activists-phone-even-after-cancellation-of-contract\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia uses Cellebrite to break into human rights activist\u2019s phone, even after cancellation of contract"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cyberscoop.com\/russia-cellebrite-activist-phone-hacking\/\">Russia uses Cellebrite to break into human rights activist\u2019s phone, even after cancellation of contract<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cyberscoop.com\/russia-cellebrite-activist-phone-hacking\/\">https:\/\/cyberscoop.com\/russia-cellebrite-activist-phone-hacking\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-06-25 10:57:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"cyberscoop.com\">cyberscoop.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Russian authorities used Cellebrite phone-cracking technology to break into a device belonging to a prominent domestic human rights activist they arrested and imprisoned, despite the company canceling its contract with the Russian government, according to a report published Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The University of Toronto\u2019s Citizen Lab reached its conclusions after analyzing a phone belonging to Andrey Pivovarov and examining court documents he provided confirming the usage of Cellebrite\u2019s UFED product.<\/p>\n<p>Pivovarov was arrested in March 2021, sentenced in 2022 and released in 2024 as part of a prisoner exchange. Citizen Lab found evidence that authorities accessed his phone around June 2021 while the phone was in Russian government hands.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators also said it appears Russian authorities might have used information it got from Pivoarov\u2019s phone to surveil other regime opponents, combining information in the court documents with the later targeting of fellow dissident Anastasiya Burakova in a hacking campaign linked to Russia\u2019s Federal Security Service (FSB).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe historic architecture of Cellebrite forensic systems means that much of the functionality in the UFED product has continued to operate long after updates cease,\u201d Citizen Lab said in its report. \u201cFurthermore, Cellebrite systems have historically featured an offline mode. Consequently, the way Cellebrite\u2019s technology was designed appeared to make it difficult for the company to meaningfully cut off problematic customers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile Cellebrite has argued that its cancellations in Russia \u2026 went beyond what was legally required, this investigation contributes evidence that the contract cancellation did not immediately block Russia from leveraging Cellebrite\u2019s tools for political persecution,\u201d it continued.<\/p>\n<p>Cellebrite provided a response to Citizen Lab\u2019s report, saying that Cellebrite\u2019s technology would be ineffective in Russia today.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAny use of legacy Cellebrite&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cyberscoop.com\/russia-cellebrite-activist-phone-hacking\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Russia uses Cellebrite to break into human rights activist\u2019s phone, even after cancellation of contract&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":281590,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cyberscoop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/06\/GettyImages-2235593246.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281589"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281589"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":281591,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281589\/revisions\/281591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}