Friday, January 13, 2017

Cellphone Hacking Company Gets Hacked, 900 GB Of Logins, Log Files, And Forensic Evidence Taken

From Techdirt:
from the let-he-who-is-without-security-breaches-throw-the-first-All-Writs-Order dept

Everything is compromised. In the latest case of a hacking company being hacked, Israel's Cellebrite is the latest to have its internal data hauled off by hackers. Joseph Cox of Motherboard was given inside details by the crew that claims to have spirited away login info and other data from the cellphone-cracking company.
Motherboard has obtained 900 GB of data related to Cellebrite, one of the most popular companies in the mobile phone hacking industry. The cache includes customer information, databases, and a vast amount of technical data regarding Cellebrite's products.
Included in the data haul are some other nifty surprises: evidence files from forensic searches of cellphones and logs from Cellebrite devices.

Cellebrite is a major supplier to US law enforcement, as well as to government agencies in countries with sketchier human rights records like Turkey, Russia, and the United Arab Emirates. In many ways, the company is similar to Italy's Hacking Team, which found itself hacked and its emailed dirty laundry aired by enterprising hackers unimpressed by the company's malleable morality.

What's truly interesting about this hack (and those similar to it) is that they go right to the heart of what's wrong with the DOJ's insistence that any "one-time" phone crack -- like the one they pursued in the San Bernardino mass shooting case -- would be safe as houses in the government's hands....MORE 
Probably also important:
Media: Hulk Hogan Attorney Now Representing Self-Proclaimed Inventor of Email Files Suit Against TechDirt Founder