With hardware-backed full-disk encryption and additional protection of sensitive user data located in the keychain, Apple iOS is the most secure mobile operating system out there. Acquisition approaches that are traditional for Android and Windows Phone devices (namely, JTAG, ISP and chip-off) are completely meaningless for iOS devices running even years-old generations of the system. Bypassing screen lock password (passcode) has also been long considered to be useless due to the fact user data stored in the keychain is additionally encrypted with a secure key based on the passcode.

We’ve just released the first major update to Elcomsoft Phone Viewer, our lightweight forensic tool for glancing over data extracted from mobile devices. Boosting version number to 2.0, we added quite a lot of things, making it a highly recommended update.

If you follow industry news, you already know about the release of iOS 9. You may also know that iOS 9 is the toughest one to break, with no jailbreak available now or in foreseeable future. With no jailbreak and no physical acquisition available for newer devices, what methods can you still use to obtain evidence from passcode-locked devices? Our answer to this is Elcomsoft Phone Breaker 5.0 that adds over-the-air acquisition support for iOS 9.

We have just released a brand new tool, and this time it’s not about mobile forensics. Or is it?

As you may already know from the official press release, we’ve recently updated Elcomsoft Phone Breaker to version 4.10. From that release, you could learn that the updated version of the tool targets passwords managers, adding the ability to instantly decrypt passwords stored in BlackBerry Password Keeper for BlackBerry 10 and attack 1Password containers.

With all the trouble of jailbreaking iOS 8 devices and the lack of support for 64-bit hardware, does iOS physical acquisition still present meaningful benefits to the investigator? Is it still worth your time and effort attempting to acquire that iPhone via a Lightning cord?

As you may already know, we have just updated our recently released forensic tool, Elcomsoft Phone Viewer. The update received a major performance boost and numerous usability enhancements.