Hyderabad: Even as the Telangana government faces accusations of misusing voter data, a new government tender by the Telangana State Cyber Security Bureau (TGCBS) shows the police department seeking some very invasive tools to hack into phones and other devices. The tender also includes a bid for the Cellbrite hacking tool, which is owned by the Israeli company Cellbrite DI Ltd.
“These tenders are routine. The government cannot buy and use it directly from a foreign company, so it has to be done via a supplier. Among all of the software tools, every police officer uses Cellbrite. After phones are seized, when people don’t give passwords, they use that particular software. Cellbrite breaks into phones, and it has different models,” said data researcher Srinivas Kodali.
He added that Cellbrite cannot break into newer iPhone models, but it can break into most of the phones in the market. “It depends on your hardware. For example, the Google Pixel has better security hardware. For example, ED was unable to break into BRS leader Kavitha’s iPhone because of this. People keep updating their phone models for this reason,” noted Kodali.
In the tender dated August 18 this year, the Telangana Technology Services Ltd, on behalf of the TSCSB, released tenders seeking tools for cybercrime investigation. “The purpose of these tools is to enhance evidence handling and complaint processing capabilities through advanced AI-driven automation and secure infrastructure,” stated the tender.
The bids were for the following software: Talk Walker Tool, Cellbrite Inseyets Tool/Software, Cyber Forensic Tool, and Insight Tool.
The tender also detailed the features of the software, with the main aim of monitoring social media and hacking into seized devices. For example, under Talk Walker, which is also used by businesses for analysis of performance, the Telangana government’s police department is specifically looking to use it to track misinformation (internet) and to ‘monitor public sentiment and manage public relations’.
However, with Cellbrite, the government is very specifically seeking to pretty much break into phones and other devices. Under its requirements from vendors, it stated that the supplier must provide the software, cables and adaptors to allow the solution to perform access to Android and IOS mobile devices.
Moreover, it also wanted the Cellbrite software to be able to unlock Samsung secure startup using “brute force” for both Qualcomm and Exynos (chipsets) based devices. In fact, the word brute force was used in more than one place with regard to breaking into different mobile devices like Samsung, OnePlus, Motorola, Nokia and other companies.
