https://digitalcommons.newhaven.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&context=electricalcomputerengineering-facpubs

Forensic analysis of social networking applications on mobile devices

The growing need for on-scene triage of mobile devices

The iPhone mobile is used worldwide due to its enhanced computing capabilities, increased storage capacity as well as its attractive touch interface. These characteristics made the iPhone a popular smart phone device. The increased use of the iPhone lead it to become a potential source of digital evidence in criminal investigations. Therefore, iPhone forensics turned into an essential practice for forensic and security practitioners today. This research aimed at investigating and examining the logical backup acquisition of the iPhone 3GS mobile device using the Apple iTunes backup utility. It was found that significant data of forensic value such as e-mail messages, text and multimedia messages, calendar events, browsing history, GPRS locations, contacts, call history and voicemail recording can be retrieved using this method of iPhone acquisition.

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iPhone 3GS Forensics: Logical analysis using Apple iTunes Backup Utility

Smart phones with Internet capability are growing in popularity, due to many of their useful capabilities. Among other handy features of smart phones, Instant Messaging (IM) is very popular due to the level of convenience it provides in interpersonal communications. As the usage of IM on smart phone is increasing rapidly, it is important to take measures in advance from forensic standpoint forecasting the potential use of it in cyber crimes such as the cyber stalking and cyber bullying. Although, current IM applications for smart phones are in most cases a downsized version of the one used on traditional computers, diverse structure of file systems and storage device on different smart phones pose unique challenges to forensic examiners for recovering digital evidences of a conversation under investigation. In this work, we study and report the forensic analysis of three different IMs: AIM, Yahoo! Messenger and Google Talk, (both client based and web based version) on Apple iPhone. Our results show that the forensic analysis of IMs on smart phones has significant value and needs further attention.

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iForensics: Forensic Analysis of Instant Messaging on Smart Phones

—The increased usage and proliferation of small scaledigital devices, like celluar (mobile) phones has led to theemergence of mobile device analysis tools and techniques. Thisﬁeld of digital forensics has grown out of the mainstream practiceof computer forensics. Practitioners are faced with various typesof cellular phone generation technologies, proprietary embeddedﬁrmware systems, along with a staggering amount of uniquecable connectors for different models of phones within the samemanufacturer brand.This purpose of this paper is to provide foundational conceptsfor the data forensic practitioner. It will outline the commoncell phone technologies, their characteristics, and device han-dling procedures. Further data evidence storage areas are alsoexplained along with data types found in the various storageareas. Speciﬁc information is also noted about BlackBerry andiPhone devices.Detailed procedures for data analysis/extraction for mobiledevices and how to use the various toolkits that are availableis beyond the scope of this paper; the staggering numbers of cellphones and the intricacies of the toolkits makes this impossible.However, resources for the reader to further investigate the topicare attached in the appendix.Index Terms—Mobile Device, Cell Phones, BlackBerry, PDA,Smart Phones, Cellular Phone Generation, CDMA, TDMA,GSM, iDen, SIM, IMEI, IMSI, ICCID, ESN, MEID, PIN, PUK,Flash Memory, Memory Cards, Mobile Device Analysis, AnalysisTools, Cell Phone Forensics

Shafik G. Punja

Papers

Mobile Device Analysis