According to Jim Baker, FBI General Counsel, the bureau can access information on most smartphones they are dealing with, even if encryption is enabled. In this article, we tried to find out which devices they can and cannot unlock, and why.

Two-factor authentication is great when it comes to securing access to someone’s account. It’s not so great when it gets in the way of accessing your account. However, in emergency situations things can turn completely ugly. In this article we’ll discuss steps you can do to minimize the negative consequences of using two-factor authentication if you lose access to your trusted device and your trusted phone number. In order to keep the size of this text reasonable we’ll only talk about Apple’s implementation, namely Two-Step Verification and Two-Factor Authentication. You can read more about those in our previous blog post.

Beginning with Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1, Microsoft started unifying its mobile and desktop operating systems. No wonder the two versions of Microsoft’s latest OS, Windows 10, share the same approach to two-factor authentication.

Before we start discussing Google’s two-factor authentication, let’s first look how Google protects user accounts if two-factor authentication is not enabled. If Google detects an unusual sign-in attempt (such as one originating from a new device located in a different country or continent), it may prompt the user to confirm their account. This can (or cannot) be done in various ways such as receiving a verification code to an existing backup email address that was previously configured in that account. Interestingly, even receiving and entering such a code and answering all the additional security questions Google may ask about one’s account does not actually confirm anything. Without two-factor authentication, Google may easily decline sign-in requests it deems suspicious. From first-hand experience, one is then forced to change their Google Account password. (Interestingly, Microsoft exhibits similar behavior, yet the company allows using two-factor authentication in such cases even if two-factor authentication is not enabled for that account. Weird, but that’s how it works.)

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.

Good news: Apple has officially responded.

In our previous article, we figured that iPhone call logs are synced with iCloud. We performed multiple additional tests to try to understand exactly how it works, and are trying to guess why. (more…)