When accessing a locked system during an in-field investigation, speed is often the most important factor. However, maintaining digital chain of custody is just as if not more important in order to produce court admissible evidence. We are introducing new features in Elcomsoft System Recovery, our forensic triage tool, to help establish and maintain digital chain of custody throughout the investigation.

Many Linux distributions including those used in off the shelf Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices have the ability to protect users’ data with one or more types of encryption. Full-disk and folder-based encryption options are commonly available, each with its own set of pros and contras. The new native ZFS encryption made available in OpenZFS 2.0 is designed to combine the benefits of full-disk and folder-based encryption without the associated drawbacks. In this article, we’ll compare the strengths and weaknesses of LUKS, eCryptFS and ZFS encryption.

To perform an iCloud extraction, a valid password is generally required, followed by solving the two-factor authentication challenge. If the user’s iPhone is everything that you have, the iCloud password may not be available. By using a trusted device, one can gain unrestricted access to everything that is stored in the user’s iCloud account. This article gives a comprehensive walkthrough on this alternative authentication method.

A lot of folks (and even some law enforcement experts) are looking for a one-click solution for mobile extractions and data decryption. Unfortunately, in today’s day and age there are no ‘silver bullet’ solutions. In the days of high-tech mobile devices and end-to-end encryption one must clearly understand the available options, and plan their actions accordingly. The time of ‘snake oil’ exploits is long gone. The modern world of mobile forensics is complex, and your actions will depend on a lot of factors. Today, we’re going to make your life a notch more complex by introducing a new iCloud authentication option you’ve never heard of before.

The majority of mobile devices today are encrypted throughout, making extractions difficult or even impossible for major platforms. Traditional attack vectors are becoming a thing of the past with encryption being moved into dedicated security chips, and encryption keys generated on first unlock based on the user’s screen lock passwords. Cloud forensics is a great alternative, often returning as much or even more data compared to what is stored on the device itself.

Switching the iPhone into DFU mode is frequently required during the investigation, especially for older devices that are susceptible to checkm8 exploit. However, switching to DFU requires a sequence of key presses on the device with precise timings. If the device is damaged and one or more keys are not working correctly, entering DFU may be difficult or impossible. In this guide, we offer an alternative.

When analyzing connected computers, one may be tempted to pull the plug and bring the PC to the lab for in-depth research. This strategy carries risks that may overweigh the benefits. In this article we’ll discuss what exactly you may be losing when pulling the plug.

In just a few weeks, the new iPhone range will be released. Millions of users all over the world will upgrade, migrating their data from old devices. While Apple has an ingenious backup system in place, it has quite a few things behind the scenes that can make the migration not go as smooth as planned. How do you do the migration properly not to lose anything?

One of the main problems of iCloud forensics (unknown account passwords aside) is the sporadic nature of cloud backups. Experts often find out that a given user either does not have device backups in their iCloud account at all, or only has a very old backup. This happens primarily because of Apple’s policy of only granting 5GB of storage to the users of the free tier. While users can purchase additional storage for mere 99 cents a months, very few do so. iCloud Photos, downloads and other data quickly fill up the allotted storage space, leaving no space for a fresh cloud backup.

How do you extract an Apple Watch? While several extraction methods are available, you need an adapter if you want to get the data directly from the device. There are several different options available on the market, some of them costing north of $200. We tested a large number of such adapters. How do they stand to the marketing claims? In this article, I will share my experience with these adapters.