Cellebrite closes some vulnerabilities found by Signal in hack tool

Cellebrite has patched some vulnerabilities in its Physical Analyzer software that governments can use to extract data from iPhones. The development team behind Signal discovered vulnerabilities in Israeli company Cellebrite’s hacking tools.

Cellebrite released an update that would fix some of the discovered vulnerabilities. According to release notes from Cellebrite, which 9to5Mac was able to view, data extraction on iPhones will no longer run via the Physical Analyzer software, but via the universal forensic extraction devices that the company makes. These UFEs would in turn have the extracted data analyzed by the Physical Analyzer software.

One of the employees of the Signal development team, according to his own account, came into possession of the hacking tool. That can be read on the company’s blog page, where developer Moxie Marlinspike described his findings last week. He explained that the team was surprised by the many vulnerabilities it found in Cellebrite’s software, including the use of outdated dynamic link libraries.

As a result, the team claims that using a small software file it can easily manipulate the results of the Physical Analyzer software, as well as infect the computer running the software so that future and already performed data analyzes can be manipulated. Signal hinted that it would include this software file, and variations on it, in a future version of its chat application, claiming to protect its users from the Israeli company’s hacking tools.