Book Image

iOS Forensics for Investigators

By : Gianluca Tiepolo
5 (1)
Book Image

iOS Forensics for Investigators

5 (1)
By: Gianluca Tiepolo

Overview of this book

Professionals working in the mobile forensics industry will be able to put their knowledge to work with this practical guide to learning how to extract and analyze all available data from an iOS device. This book is a comprehensive, how-to guide that leads investigators through the process of collecting mobile devices and preserving, extracting, and analyzing data, as well as building a report. Complete with step-by-step explanations of essential concepts, practical examples, and self-assessment questions, this book starts by covering the fundamentals of mobile forensics and how to overcome challenges in extracting data from iOS devices. Once you've walked through the basics of iOS, you’ll learn how to use commercial tools to extract and process data and manually search for artifacts stored in database files. Next, you'll find out the correct workflows for handling iOS devices and understand how to extract valuable information to track device usage. You’ll also get to grips with analyzing key artifacts, such as browser history, the pattern of life data, location data, and social network forensics. By the end of this book, you'll be able to establish a proper workflow for handling iOS devices, extracting all available data, and analyzing it to gather precious insights that can be reported as prosecutable evidence.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
1
Section 1 – Data Acquisition from iOS Devices
4
Section 2 – iOS Data Analysis
14
Section 3 – Reporting

BFU acquisition of locked devices

In Chapter 2, Data Acquisition from iOS Devices, we introduced the Checkm8 vulnerability and the checkra1n jailbreak, which allows the examiner to gain full access to the filesystem of devices ranging from the iPhone 5s to the iPhone X. This vulnerability can be exploited to perform an acquisition from locked or disabled devices, even if the passcode is unknown. This kind of acquisition is called a BFU acquisition.

It's important to understand that a BFU acquisition only allows a partial extraction of the device's data, as most files remain encrypted until the passcode is entered. Still, a partial extraction, including data from the keychain, is definitely better than nothing, as this could include notable evidence.

The following table lists some of the most popular artifacts that can be extracted through a BFU acquisition:

Table 11.1 – Common artifacts found in BFU acquisition

As you can see from the...