Aiming to turn ‘every device into a source,’ Cellebrite launches made-for-the-military data extraction kit 

Digital forensics firm Cellebrite unveiled a new portable field kit that can fit in a backpack and is purpose-built for military and intelligence officials who aim to mine data directly from mobile phones, SIM cards, drones, tablets and other devices in real time, at the point of capture.

The company billed the launch of its new Cellebrite Tactical Extraction Kit (C-TEK) on Wednesday as “the first public step” in a broader push to reach defense and intel customers worldwide. 

“The core idea behind C-TEK is turning every soldier into a sensor and every device into a source,” a Cellebrite spokesperson told DefenseScoop in an email on Tuesday, previewing the official announcement.

Headquartered in Israel since its founding in 1999, Cellebrite entered the U.S. market around 2007 and established its major corporate footprint in Northern Virginia in the early 2020s.

The company is known for developing and selling technologies to law enforcement organizations, federal agencies, military units and corporate security teams that can bypass security mechanisms to access, extract, and analyze data and files from locked mobile devices — and more recently, drones. 

Human rights groups and privacy activists have raised concerns and documented instances of the firm’s digital forensics products being used by governments to target or interrogate political dissidents and other activists. Cellebrite maintains that it enforces strict ethical guidelines governing its tools’ usage. 

“C-TEK is built to access and analyze mobile phones, SIM cards, computers, drones and other portable media, such as legacy and feature phones, in the field,” the Cellebrite spokesperson said. “This includes contacts, communications, media, chats, location history, search history, etc. The kit runs our Inseyets software, paired with Digital Collector, which handles triage and selective extraction so operators can quickly get to the most relevant information without needing to be a trained forensics analyst.”

They declined to say whether the kit can be used to pull information from gadgets or drones that are turned completely off, but replied that data can be identified and extracted by Cellebrite’s assets in a variety of ways depending on a number of factors — like the operating system or how it is encrypted.

“Our methods of accessing devices and specific details and level of support are proprietary and confidential,” the spokesperson told DefenseScoop. 

While Aug. 26 will mark the first day the new product is generally available to customers, they noted that all of its technology components are already field-tested by the firm’s customers in the military sector.

“What C-TEK does is bring it all into the same kit with the necessary power supply and hardware made for field environments, so it’s mission-ready and deployable,” the Cellebrite spokesperson said. “Forces are generally very capable at recovering devices, but converting those captures into something a commander can act on, within the window in which it remains useful, is more difficult.”

Locations change, accounts lapse and credentials expire, they added, so a device that could expose an active network one day may only support historical reporting a short time later.

According to the company’s press release, C-TEK “is a ready-made bundle of ruggedized hardware and Cellebrite software engineered to access a wide range of phones, computers and other devices in the field.”

Cellebrite has reportedly delivered its expertise and other offerings to the U.S. Marine Corps Criminal Investigation Division, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, the Army Military Police School, among other military hubs and U.S. federal agencies that focus on intelligence, law enforcement and national security.

The spokesperson said C-TEK was explicitly designed for military teams facing a rapidly changing digital landscape, and in response to what the firm views as “an increased need to extract and analyze digital data in the field” — right where it’s generated. 

“Cellebrite has historically served [the military] community,” they added. “Activity is now spread across phones, wearables, vehicles, sensors, applications and cloud services, which means any single device represents only part of a much larger picture. Examined on its own, a device answers narrow questions. Examined alongside other devices, it begins to reveal relationships, patterns and networks — information that is often critical to real-time decision making.” 

Regarding the C-TEK’s price-per-kit, the spokesperson told DefenseScoop that Cellebrite “doesn’t publicly disclose pricing details, as they vary by customer needs and deployment.”