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

Summary

In this chapter, we introduced the topic of locked devices and learned all about different investigative approaches that can lead to the acquisition of a device that has an unknown passcode. First, we learned where to locate lockdown records and how to use them to perform a logical acquisition of a locked device. Then, we briefly discussed passcode cracking, before moving on to BFU acquisitions. Next, we learned where iTunes backups are stored and how to analyze their metadata. Finally, in the last section of the chapter, we introduced iCloud forensics by learning what data is synced to the cloud, how to gain access to it, and how to extract it using forensic tools.

In the final chapter of this book, we will learn how to write a mobile forensics report and how to export a device's artifacts to a timeline.