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

GPS fixes, cell towers, and Wi-Fi networks

The Location Services iOS API uses a collection of technologies known as Assisted GPS (A-GPS) to determine the device's position. The main reason why mobile devices use A-GPS instead of only traditional satellite GPS is that the latter does not perform well inside buildings; it is also slower than other technologies and quickly drains a device's battery. A-GPS works by augmenting satellite GPS by using external sources (such as cell towers) that enhance the speed, quality, and precision of satellite signals. Data received by external sources is then consolidated to figure out the device's precise location.

The following is a list of sources that power A-GPS:

  • Satellite GPS
  • Cell towers
  • Wi-Fi networks
  • Bluetooth devices

We will look into these in more detail in the following sections.

You may be wondering how an iOS device manages to resolve locations from Wi-Fi networks or cell towers; this is implemented...