Two-factor authentication a roadblock when investigating an Apple device. Obtaining a data backup from the user’s iCloud account is a common and relatively easy way to acquire evidence from devices that are otherwise securely protected. It might be possible to bypass two-factor authentication if one is able to extract a so-called authentication token from the suspect’s computer.

In this article we’ll discuss the differences between implementations of two-factor authentication in popular mobile platforms. We’ll research how two-factor authentication is implemented in Android, iOS and Windows 10 Mobile, and discuss usability and security implications of each implementation.

The previous article was about the theory. In this part we’ll go directly to practice. If you possess a turned on and locked iOS device and have no means of unlocking it with either Touch ID or passcode, you may still be able to obtain a backup via the process called logical acquisition. While logical acquisition may return somewhat less information compared to the more advanced physical acquisition, it must be noted that physical acquisition may not be available at all on a given device.

In recent versions of iOS, successful acquisition of a locked device is no longer a given. Multiple protection layers and Apple’s new policy on handling government requests make forensic experts look elsewhere when investigating Apple smartphones.

Today we are super excited: our first book on mobile forensics just got published! The book is called “Mobile Forensics – Advanced Investigative Strategies”, and is about everything you need to successfully acquire evidence from the widest range of mobile devices. Unlike most other books on this subject, we don’t just throw file names or hex dumps at your face. Instead, we discuss the issues of seizing mobile devices and preserving digital evidence before it reaches the lab; talk about acquisition options available in every case, and help you choose the correct acquisition path to extract evidence with least time and minimal risk.

FileVault 2 is a whole-disk encryption scheme used in Apple’s Mac OS X using secure XTS-AES encryption to protect the startup partition. Brute-forcing your way into a crypto container protected with a 256-bit key is a dead end.

Releasing a major update of a complex forensic tool is always tough. New data locations and formats, new protocols and APIs require an extensive amount of research. Sometimes, we discover things that surprise us. Researching Apple’s iCloud Photo Library (to be integrated into Elcomsoft Phone Breaker 6.0) led to a particularly big surprise. We discovered that Apple keeps holding on to the photos you stored in iCloud Photo Library and then deleted, keeping “deleted” images for much longer than the advertised 30 days without telling anyone. Elcomsoft Phone Breaker 6.0 becomes the first tool on the market to gain access to deleted images going back past 30 days.

For many months, a working jailbreak was not available for current versions of iOS. In the end of July, Pangu released public jailbreak for iOS 9.2-9.3.3. A few days ago, Apple patched the exploit and started seeding iOS 9.3.4. This was the shortest-living jailbreak in history.

Not all passwords provide equal protection. Some formats are more resistant to brute-force attacks than others. As an example, Microsoft Office 2013 and 2016 employ a smart encryption scheme that is very slow to decrypt. Even the fastest available GPU units found in NVIDIA’s latest GeForce GTX 1080 will only allow trying some 7100 passwords per second.

How often do you think forensic specialists have to deal with encrypted containers? Compared with office documents and archives that are relatively infrequent, every second case involves an encrypted container. It may vary, but these evaluations are based on a real survey conducted by our company.