Today’s smartphones and wearable devices collect overwhelming amounts of data about the user’s health. Health information including the user’s daily activities, workouts, medical conditions, body measurements and many other types of information is undoubtedly one of the most sensitive types of data. Yet, smartphone users are lenient to trust this highly sensitive information to other parties. In this research, we’ll figure out how Apple and Google as two major mobile OS manufacturers collect, store, process and secure health data. We’ll analyze Apple Health and Google Fit, research what information they store in the cloud, learn how to extract the data. We’ll also analyze how both companies secure health information and how much of that data is available to third parties.

In Apple’s world, the keychain is one of the core and most secure components of macOS, iOS and its derivatives such as watchOS and tvOS. The keychain is intended to keep the user’s most valuable secrets securely protected. This includes protection for authentication tokens, encryption keys, credit card data and a lot more. End users are mostly familiar with one particular feature of the keychain: the ability to store all kinds of passwords. This includes passwords to Web sites (Safari and third-party Web browsers), mail accounts, social networks, instant messengers, bank accounts and just about everything else. Some records (such as Wi-Fi passwords) are “system-wide”, while other records can be only accessed by their respective apps. iOS 12 further develops password auto-fill, allowing users to utilize passwords they stored in Safari in many third-party apps.

Apple has a wonderfully integrated ecosystem. Apple computers, tablets and phones conveniently synchronize information such as passwords, Web browsing history, contacts and call logs across all of the user’s devices. This synchronization mechanism uses iCloud to sync and store information. The syncing mechanism works independently from iOS system backups that are also stored in iCloud (or iCloud Drive). As opposed to daily iCloud backups, synchronized data is updated and propagated across devices in almost real time. Extracting this information can be invaluable for investigations as it provides access to the most up to date information about the user, their activities and whereabouts.

In our previous blog post, we wrote everything we know about authentication tokens and Anisette data, which might allow you to bypass the “login, password and two-factor authentication” sequence. Let us have a look at how you can actually extract those tokens from a trusted computer and use them on a different computer to access a user’s iCloud account. Read Part 1 and Part 2 of the series.

We loved what Apple used to do about security. During the past years, the company managed to build a complete, multi-layer system to secure its hardware and software ecosystem and protect its customers against common threats. Granted, the system was not without its flaws (most notably, the obligatory use of a trusted phone number – think SS7 vulnerability – for the purpose of two-factor authentication), but overall it was still the most secure mobile ecosystem on the market.

Who am I to tell you to use two-factor authentication on all accounts that support it? This recommendation coming from someone whose business is supplying law enforcement with tools helping them do their job might be taken with a grain of salt by an average consumer. Yet we still strongly believe that, however good a password you have to encrypt your local documents or NAS drives, any remotely popular online service absolutely requires an additional authentication factor.

Two-factor authentication is essential to secure one’s access to online accounts. We studied multiple implementations of two-factor authentication including those offered by Apple, Google and Microsoft. While Google’s implementation offers the largest number of options, we feel that Apple has the most balanced implementation. The closed ecosystem and the resulting deep integration with the core OS makes it easy for Apple to control exactly how it works and on which devices.

Accessing the list of apps installed on an iOS device can give valuable insight into which apps the user had, which social networks they use, and which messaging tools they communicate with. While manually reviewing the apps by examining the device itself is possible by scrolling a potentially long list, we offer a better option. Elcomsoft Phone Viewer can not just display the list of apps installed on a given device, but provide information about the app’s version, date and time of acquisition (first download for free apps and date and time of purchase for paid apps), as well as the Apple ID that was used to acquire the app. While some of that data is part of iOS system backups, data on app’s acquisition time must be obtained separately by making a request to Apple servers. Elcomsoft Phone Viewer automates such requests, seamlessly displaying the most comprehensive information about the apps obtained from multiple sources.

In this how-to guide, we’ll cover the steps required to access the list of saved wireless networks along with their passwords.

With all attention now being on new iPhone devices, it is easy to forget about the new version of iOS. While new iPhone models were mostly secret until announcement, everyone could test iOS 11 for months before the official release.