BIRN Claims Secret Police Hacked Activists’ Phones

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A forensic analysis by Amnesty International has revealed that Serbia’s Security and Information Agency employed technology developed by the Israeli company Cellebrite DI Ltd. to unlock the phones of activists brought in for questioning and then installed the domestic NoviSpy program on the devices to track the activists’ further activities, claims a Dec. 16 article published on the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) website.

According BIRN, NoviSpy software has been installed on the mobiles of four activists over the last year, while traces of unsuccessful installation attempts have been found on a dozen more devices.

The watchdog went on to explain that Cellebrite tools were used to unlock the phones, download data and prepare the devices for the installation of NoviSpy in at least three instances, whereby the activists’ photographs, contact lists and personal texts were accessed and copied.