Book Image

Mobile Forensics ??? Advanced Investigative Strategies

By : Oleg Afonin, Vladimir Katalov
Book Image

Mobile Forensics ??? Advanced Investigative Strategies

By: Oleg Afonin, Vladimir Katalov

Overview of this book

Investigating digital media is impossible without forensic tools. Dealing with complex forensic problems requires the use of dedicated tools, and even more importantly, the right strategies. In this book, you’ll learn strategies and methods to deal with information stored on smartphones and tablets and see how to put the right tools to work. We begin by helping you understand the concept of mobile devices as a source of valuable evidence. Throughout this book, you will explore strategies and "plays" and decide when to use each technique. We cover important techniques such as seizing techniques to shield the device, and acquisition techniques including physical acquisition (via a USB connection), logical acquisition via data backups, over-the-air acquisition. We also explore cloud analysis, evidence discovery and data analysis, tools for mobile forensics, and tools to help you discover and analyze evidence. By the end of the book, you will have a better understanding of the tools and methods used to deal with the challenges of acquiring, preserving, and extracting evidence stored on smartphones, tablets, and the cloud.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Mobile Forensics – Advanced Investigative Strategies
Credits
Foreword
About the Authors
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface

Over-the-air acquisition


Many mobile devices come with the ability to back up their contents into the cloud. Depending on the platform, cloud backups may contain as much as the full content of the device complete with the call histories and messages (Apple iOS 7.x through 9.x, Windows RT, and Windows 8/8.1/10); as little as a list of installed applications and a few random settings (Android 4.4 and Android 5.x); or something in between (Windows Phone 8 and Android 6.0).

For some devices, cloud forensics may be the only acquisition method available due to full-disk encryption and hardware lock. For example, cloud forensics is the only viable process for locked 64-bit iPhones running iOS 8+ and some Windows Phone 8 and Windows 10 Mobile devices.

Compared to other acquisition methods in general, cloud backups tend to contain the least amount of information.

For cloud acquisition to work, the expert will have to possess the user's authentication credentials. While a login and password are the most...