In Apple ecosystem, logical acquisition is the most convenient and the most compatible extraction method, with local backups being a major contributor. Password-protected backups contain significantly more information than unencrypted backups, which is why many forensic tools including iOS Forensic Toolkit automatically apply a temporary backup password before creating a backup. If a temporary password is not removed after the extraction, subsequent extraction attempts, especially made with a different tool, will produce encrypted backups protected with an effectively unknown password. In this article we’ll talk about why this happens and how to deal with it.

The iPhone backup is one of the hottest topics in iOS forensics. iTunes-style backups are the core of logical acquisition used by forensic specialists, containing overwhelming amounts of evidence that is is unrivaled on other platforms. The backups, as simple as they seem, have many “ifs” and “buts”, especially when it comes to password protection. We wrote a thousand and one articles about iOS backup passwords, but there is always something fresh that comes out. Today we have some new tips for you.