What Is Mobile Forensics? Essay Example

With current technologies, an attacker initiates prevalent attacks that are vivid and intense in order to compromise or destroy the target. Researchers have studied these attacks in order to evaluate a secure mechanism that may effectively detect and fight against these vivid attacks. Mobile forensics is related to digital forensics and its primary purpose is to recover deleted or corrupted data from the cellular device. Likewise, by a safe chain of custody the recovered data from the device is then presented in the court of law. Data from leading brands such as iPhone iOS and Android 4.1 can be recovered by specialized forensic tools that can be executed by certified forensic professionals. Moreover, these tools can provide in-depth analysis and advance data forensic techniques on new and innovative smartphone and cell phone technology that will assist law enforcement agencies during a criminal investigation.

Likewise, data residing on these devices includes data geological location that can be extracted from the phone’s memory. Blackberry has the capability to decode the encoded messages from the messenger along with group chat messages. In contrast, iOS 6 has the capability of full physical data extraction and this may include all hidden and deleted data along with bypassing patterns, personal identification and passwords (Approach to auditing network security, n.d). IOS has a unique feature of geolocation that allows device traceability when it is not reachable and android do not currently possess this feature. However, some manufacturers of android supported OS provide support for initiating a ring and deleting the data remotely. Likewise, both of these OS supports permission based access control mechanism. The jailbreak procedure in iOS is not secure and can trigger vulnerabilities. Android based apps contains lot of advertisements and comes with vulnerabilities because they are not certified neither their source is secure. In cellular network connectivity, encryption must be configured (Decryption & password cracking software, n.d). There are network devices having encryption functionality such as routers, switches (Approach to auditing network security, n.d).

Mobile Forensic Evidence Acquisition

Acquisition of a physical image of the phone’s memory is not an easy task. Likewise, utilizing mobile forensic tools will not reproduce hashing of data available in phone’s memory. Hashing is a technique that is used for validating data integrity, as different hashing algorithms are utilized for reproducing character strings that is used for validation of file changes. Moreover, taking flash backup will make a memory image or copy, as the memory of the phone needs to be vacant in a phone that is powered on. A forensic audit is necessary as a means of retrieving data through an examination of an external server, such as a cloud server, that may have the text messages as backup and where retrieval is available (Wirth, 2014). In addition, tools such as SQLite Database Browser or SQLite Studio are alternatives, along with SMS Backup and Restore (Wirth, 2014). These tools require specific knowledge and expertise, but they are very helpful in supporting the retrieval process for evidence that may be required in a legal and/or criminal case (Wirth, 2014).

SMS Message Forensics

SMS messages contain a lot of critical information that may lead to conclusive evidence. We have selected Motorola Razr for performing SMS message forensics. Likewise, in this scenario, we will be able to recover old messages by forensic tools. We can recover data from the cell phone by utilizing SEEM007D. However, this methodology will capture and receive messages, as they are by default stored in the SIM card of the phone. Moreover, we will also use AT commands that will extract the messages available in the graphical user interface of the phone.

References

Approach to auditing network security, n.d Retrieved 10/30/2011, 2011, from http://www.isaca.org/Journal/Past-Issues/2003/Volume-5/Pages/Approach-to-Auditing-Network-Security.aspx

Decryption & password cracking software, n.d | AccessData Retrieved 10/30/2011, 2011, from http://accessdata.com/products/computer-forensics/decryption#dna

Wirth, J.M. (2014). Oklahoma Courts: how to save text messages for legal purposes. Retrieved from http://www.wirthlawoffice.com/tulsa-attorney-blog/2014/03/oklahoma-courts-save-text-messages-legal-purposes