iMessage is undoubtedly one of the most popular instant messaging platforms for an obvious reason: it’s built in to iOS and ships with every iPhone by default. iMessage does not require complex setup, so the number of iMessage users is closely matching the number of iPhone users. Apple sells about 200 million iPhones every year, and the total number of iPhones sold is more than a billion. Unless you absolutely must chat with someone outside of Apple’s ecosystem (like those poor Android folks), you won’t need Skype, WhatsApp or Telegram. It’s also comforting to know that iMessage works everywhere around the world while most other messengers are oppressed in one or more countries.

Cloud analysis is arguably the future of mobile forensics. Whether or not the device is working or physically accessible, cloud extraction often allows accessing amounts of information far exceeding those available in the device itself.

iOS 11.4 has finally brought a feature Apple promised almost a year ago: the iMessage sync via iCloud. This feature made its appearance in iOS 11 beta, but was stripped from the final release. It re-appeared and disappeared several times during the iOS 11 development cycle, and has finally made it into iOS 11.4. Let’s have a look at how iMessages are protected and how to download them from iCloud.

We also trust these companies in ways that we do not understand yet. How many of you trust Apple? No voting… Just me 🙂 Damn! OK. May I ask you a very good question. Trusting to do what? Trusting when they say: “iMessages are end-to-end encrypted”? I mean, with all of that massive security engineering, to make sure it’s as good as it can be, so they genuinely believe they’ve done that. I do, generally, they’re great people. But… people believe themselves they can defend themselves against the Russians. If the Russians specifically targeted Apple, it’s only they can defend themselves. – Ian Levy, director at the GCHQ on anniversary of the foundation of the FIPR event that was held on 29/04/2018).

On February 28, 2018, Apple has officially moved its Chinese iCloud operations and encryption keys to China. The reaction to this move from the media was overwhelmingly negative. The Verge, The Guardian, Reuters, Wired, and CNN among other Western media outlets expressed their concerns about the Chinese government potentially violating the human rights of its citizens. Politics aside, we will review Apple policies governing the Chinese accounts, and look into the technical implementation of Chinese iCloud operations. Let us see if the fears are substantiated.

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.

iCloud authentication tokens in particular are difficult to grasp. What are they, what tools are they created with, where they are stored, and how and when they can be used are questions that we’re being asked a lot. Let’s try to put things together. Read Part 1 of the series.

What are iCloud authentication tokens? How they are better than good old passwords? Do they ever expire and when? Where to get them? Is there anything else I should know about tokens? This publication opens a new series on token-based authentication.