The FSB hacked the phone of politician Andrei Pivovarov using the Israeli Cellebrite program during his arrest

The Citizen Lab research organization has established that the FSB hacked the iPhone of former Open Russia director Andrei Pivovarov using a product from the Israeli company Cellebrite. The politician himself spoke about this.

According to Citizen Lab, the hack occurred around June 17, 2021, two weeks after Pivovarov was detained in the case of carrying out the activities of an “undesirable organization.” The case was initiated because of his work in Open Russia, which the politician had already dissolved by the time of his arrest. The phone and laptop that were seized from Pivovarov were only returned in 2023.

After being released from a Russian colony in 2024 and leaving for Germany, the politician brought the devices to Citizen Lab for testing. Experts found traces of the UFED tool, which allows you to copy the entire contents of the phone.

“Based on correspondence obtained from the phone, they came up with a justification that I allegedly continued “criminal activities” as the head of Open Russia. In fact, they pumped out all the information from there,” he wrote.

According to him, investigators also used the correspondence to find people involved in political activities.

As Pivovarov notes, at the time his phone was hacked, Cellebrite had already officially left the Russian market for three months.

"In my case, it was the information obtained through hacking that gave rise to a sentence of 4 years. Taking into account the new realities - correspondence, donations or just a saved picture can send the owner of the phone to a prison colony for ten years," the politician concluded.

This is not the only known use of Cellebrite. The program was used on the devices of Navalny’s ally Lyubov Sobol and the creator of the “Protest MSU” public page Dmitry Ivanov.

Former director of Open Russia Andrei Pivovarov was convicted in 2022 in Russia under an article on the activities of an “undesirable organization.” He was released as part of a prisoner exchange between Russia and the West, which took place on August 1, 2024.

Pivovarov was due to be released in September 2024. However, according to some reports , a new criminal case was being prepared against him in Russia and, if he had not been exchanged, apparently, he would have received a new sentence and could have remained in prison for several more years.