Russia’s Federal Security Service hacked the phone of Andrei Pivovarov, a politician and former director of Open Russia, using equipment from the Israeli company Cellebrite, Pivovarov said on his Telegram channel on June 25. The digital forensics organization Citizen Lab, which found the spyware on Pivovarov’s iPhone, provided additional details.

Citizen Lab specialists determined that Russian authorities used Cellebrite equipment to break into Pivovarov’s iPhone 12 around June 17, 2021, while the politician was in custody.

He had been detained several weeks earlier on charges of running an “undesirable organization” — namely Open Russia, which Pivovarov had dissolved in May 2021.

The analysis found that the hack used a product called Universal Forensic Extraction Device (UFED), which allows all data to be extracted from a device.

Investigators had “essentially pumped out all the information” from his phone, Pivovarov said, including correspondence with people involved in politics. According to him, investigators used that correspondence to “fabricate a justification that I had allegedly continued ‘criminal activity’ as the head of Open Russia.”

Russian authorities used Cellebrite software to break into Pivovarov’s phone even after the company announced on March 18, 2021, that it would exit Russia and Belarus, Citizen Lab notes.

Cellebrite is the world’s best-known supplier of tools for hacking phones running Android and iOS. Russian authorities have used it, among other cases, in attempts to break into the phone of Lyubov Sobol, an ally of Alexey Navalny, and Dmitry Ivanov. U.S. authorities used Cellebrite to unlock the phone of Thomas Matthew Crooks, who shot at Donald Trump during a rally in Pennsylvania in 2024.

Andrei Pivovarov had been in custody since May 2021. In 2024, he was transferred to Germany as part of a large-scale prisoner exchange between Russia and Western countries. After his release, Pivovarov was designated a “foreign agent.”