TLDR Tech / InfoSec
Citizen Lab Finds Cellebrite Tool Used on Kenyan Activist's Phone in Police Custody
Citizen Lab confirmed with high confidence that Cellebrite forensic extraction tools were used on Kenyan pro-democracy activist Boniface Mwangi's Samsung phone while in police custody following his July 2025 arrest, potentially enabling full data extraction including messages, passwords, and financial information. The findings follow a similar report of Cellebrite misuse in Jordan and coincide with Amnesty International's discovery of Intellexa's Predator spyware targeting an Angolan journalist via WhatsApp, marking the first confirmed Predator case against civil society in Angola. The cases highlight the growing global abuse of commercial surveillance tools against activists and journalists, with Predator's sophisticated anti-forensics capabilities including crash monitoring, recording indicator suppression, and granular operator control over failed deployments.
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