Cloud backups are an invaluable source of information whether you download them from the user’s iCloud account or obtain directly from Apple. But why some iCloud backups miss essential bits and pieces of information such as text messages, particularly iMessages? The answer is “end-to-end encryption”, and there’s more to it than just backups.

Over the last several years, the use of smart wearables continued to grow despite slowing sales. Among the many models, the Apple Watch Series 3 occupies a special spot. Introduced back in 2017, this model is still available new, occupying the niche of the most affordable wearable device in the Apple ecosystem. All that makes the Series 3 one of the most common Apple Watch models. The latest update to iOS Forensic Toolkit enables low-level extraction of the Apple Watch 3 using the checkm8 exploit.

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.

Elcomsoft Phone Breaker is not just about Apple iCloud data. It can also download the data from other cloud services including Microsoft accounts. In this new version, we have added support for even more types of data, including Windows 10 Timeline, Account Activity (logins to the account), OneDrive files, recent OneDrive files history, and files from Microsoft Personal Vault. Learn about these data types and how they can help advance your investigation.

How to break ‘strong’ passwords? Is there a methodology, a step by step approach? What shall you start from if your time is limited but you desperately need to decrypt critical evidence? We want to share some tips with you, this time about the passwords saved in the Web browsers on most popular platforms.

For more than ten years, we’ve been exploring iPhone backups, both local and iCloud, and we know a lot about them. Let’s reveal some secrets about the different types of backups and how they compare to each other.

How secure are your chats in your favorite instant messenger? Can someone intercept and read your secret conversations, and can you do something about it? Apple users have access to the highly popular instant messaging system, the iMessage. But how secure it really is? Let’s find out.

Apple iMessage is an important communication channel and an essential part of forensic acquisition efforts. iMessage chats are reasonably secure. Your ability to extract iMessages as well as the available sources of extraction will depend on several factors. Let’s discuss the factors that may affect your ability to extract, and what you can do to overcome them.

When investigating iOS devices, you may have seen references to the SoC generation. Security researchers and developers of various iOS jailbreaks and exploits often list a few iPhone models followed by a note that mentions “compatible iPad models”. This is especially common when discussing iOS forensics, particularly referring to the checkra1n jailbreak. What do those references mean, and how are the iPhone and iPad models related? Can we count the iPod Touch and Apple TV, too? Let’s have a look.

The keychain is one of the hallmarks of the Apple ecosystem. Containing a plethora of sensitive information, the keychain is one of the best guarded parts of the walled garden. At the same time, the keychain is relatively underexplored by the forensic community. The common knowledge has it that the keychain contains the users’ logins and passwords, and possibly some payment card information. The common knowledge is missing the point: the keychain contains literally thousands of records belonging to various apps and the system that are required to access lots of other sensitive information. Let’s talk about the keychain, its content and its protection, and the methods used to extract, decrypt and analyze the various bits and pieces.