Forensic Analysis of Windows 10 and 11 Event Logs
February 18th, 2026 by Oleg Afonin
The discipline of digital forensics and incident response relies fundamentally on the persistent, systemic traces left by both legitimate users and malicious actors. The Windows Event Log system serves as a primary chronological record of operating system activity, capturing security events, application behaviors, service and driver activity, and user authentication telemetry. Due to the immense volume of background events generated by Windows 10 and Windows 11, isolating forensically relevant artifacts is a highly specialized task. A comprehensive understanding of this logging mechanism is often decisive when reconstructing an incident timeline.
Breaking Wi-Fi Passwords
March 6th, 2020 by Oleg Afonin
Modern wireless networks are securely protected with WPA/WPA2. The most frequently used method of securing access to a wireless network is pre-shared passphrase, or, simply put, a text password. The WPA standard enforces the minimum length of 8 characters for all Wi-Fi passwords. Considering the relatively low performance of WPA/WPA2 password attacks, brute force attacks are rarely effective even when performed with a network of GPU-accelerated computers. In this article, I will show how to attack wireless passwords for the purpose of security audit.
Why Mobile Forensic Specialists Need a Developer Account with Apple
March 5th, 2020 by Oleg Afonin
In our recent article iPhone Acquisition Without a Jailbreak I mentioned that agent-based extraction requires the use of an Apple ID that has been registered in Apple’s Developer Program. Participation is not free and comes with a number of limitations. Why do you need to become a “developer”, what are the limitations, and is there a workaround? Read along to find out.
iPhone Acquisition Without a Jailbreak (iOS 11 and 12)
February 20th, 2020 by Oleg Afonin
Elcomsoft iOS Forensic Toolkit can perform full file system acquisition and decrypt the keychain from non-jailbroken iPhone and iPad devices. The caveat: the device must be running iOS 11 or 12 (except iOS 12.3, 12.3.1 and 12.4.1), and you must use an Apple ID registered in Apple’s Developer Program. In this article, I’ll explain the pros and contras of the new extraction method compared to traditional acquisition based on the jailbreak.
Full File System Acquisition of iPhone 11 and Xr/Xs with iOS 13
February 18th, 2020 by Vladimir Katalov
The popular unc0ver jailbreak has been updated to v4, and this is quite a big deal. The newest update advertises support for the latest A12 and A13 devices running iOS 13 through 13.3. The current version of iOS is 13.3.1. None of the older versions (including iOS 13.3) are signed, but still there are a lot of A12/A12X/A13 devices floating around. Until now, file system and keychain extraction was a big problem. The newest unc0ver jailbreak makes it possible.
Google Fit Extraction: Location, Health and Fitness Data
February 18th, 2020 by Oleg Afonin
We have updated Elcomsoft Cloud Explorer, our Google Account extraction tool, with Google Fit support. Google Fit is a relatively little known Google service aimed at tracking the user’s health and physical activities. In line with pretty much every other Google service, Google Fit synchronizes massive amounts of data with the user’s Google Account, storing activity-related information collected by all of the user’s devices in a single place. When extracting these data, we discovered massive amounts of location points stored alongside with information related to the user’s physical activities. Learn what is stored in Google Fit and how to extract it from the cloud!
Apple vs Law Enforcement: Cloudy Times
February 4th, 2020 by Vladimir Katalov
Just days ago, we have reviewed the data stored in iCloud, and studied its encryption mechanisms. We also discussed the discrepancies between the data that is stored in the cloud and the data that’s provided to the law enforcement. In case you missed it, make sure to check out Apple vs. Law Enforcement: Cloud Forensics. Today, the differences are great; Apple is using point-to-point encryption to protect certain types of data. However, it has not always been that way. Apple security model changed year after year. This article reviews the timeline of Apple security changes over time.
The Worst Mistakes in iOS Forensics
January 30th, 2020 by Vladimir Katalov
What can possibly go wrong with that iPhone? I’ll have a look (oh, it’s locked!), then switch it off, eject the SIM card and pass it on to the expert. Well, you’ve just made three of the five most common mistakes making subsequent unlock and extraction attempts significantly more difficult. Learn about the most common mistakes and their consequences.
A Comprehensive Guide on Securing Your System, Archives and Documents
January 23rd, 2020 by Oleg Afonin
How can you make your system and documents secure? Today, 256-bit AES encryption is offered by everyone and their dog. However, AES encryption does not mean much (or anything at all) when it comes to the real security of your data. Implementing encryption at the right time and in the right spot is no less important than choosing strong encryption credentials and managing the encryption keys.
Introduction to BitLocker: Protecting Your System Disk
January 20th, 2020 by Oleg Afonin
If you are a Windows user and ever considered protecting your data with full-disk encryption, you have probably heard about BitLocker. BitLocker is Microsoft’s implementation of full-disk encryption that is built into many versions of Windows. You maybe even using BitLocker without realizing that you do – for example, if you have a Surface or a similar thin-and-light Windows device. At the same time, BitLocker encryption is not available by default on desktops if you are using the Home edition of Windows 10. Activating BitLocker on your system disk can be tricky and may not work right away even if your Windows edition supports it. In this article, we are offering an introduction to BitLocker encryption. We’ll detail the types of threats BitLocker can effectively protect your data against, and the type of threats against which BitLocker is useless. Finally, we’ll describe how to activate BitLocker on systems that don’t meet Microsoft’s hardware requirements, and evaluate whether it’s worth it or not security-wise.
Apple vs. Law Enforcement: Cloud Forensics
January 17th, 2020 by Oleg Afonin
Today’s smartphones collect overwhelming amounts of data about the user’s daily activities. Smartphones track users’ location and record the number of steps they walked, save pictures and videos they take and every message they send or receive. Users trust smartphones with their passwords and login credentials to social networks, e-commerce and other Web sites. It is hard to imagine one’s daily life without calendars and reminders, notes and browser favorites and many other bits and pieces of information we entrust our smartphones. All of those bits and pieces, and much more, are collected from the iPhone and stored in the cloud. While Apple claims secure encryption for all of the cloud data, the company readily provides some information to the law enforcement when presented with a legal request – but refuses to give away some of the most important bits of data. In this article we’ll cover the types of data that Apple does and does not deliver when served with a government request or while processing the user’s privacy request.
