Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this. Imagine your smartphone. It's not just
Speaker 1: a device, right, it's practically a digital extension of yourself,
Speaker 1: a complete, often unfiltered record of your life.
Speaker 2: That's a good way to put it.
Speaker 1: Every text you sent, every photo you've snapped, every place
Speaker 1: you've been, it's all tucked away in there. But what
Speaker 1: happens when that well intensely personal digital vault needs to
Speaker 1: be opened, maybe for an investigation or just you know,
Speaker 1: more broadly, what does it tell us about the hidden
Speaker 1: depths of our own data? Today we're taking a deep
Speaker 1: dive into the fascinating, incredibly complex world of mobile forensics.
Speaker 1: We're drawing from a really comprehensive guide on the subject.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a dense field.
Speaker 1: We're going to explore how experts actually acquire and analyze
Speaker 1: data from the very devices that are, let's be honest,
Speaker 1: glued to our hands most of the time. You'll learn
Speaker 1: not just the how, but the why these techniques are
Speaker 1: so critical, and importantly, what they reveal about your own
Speaker 1: digital footprint, whether you realize it or not.
Speaker 2: And what's truly fascinating here, I think, is how mobile
Speaker 2: forensics has just exploded. It's gone from this sort of
Speaker 2: niche area to an absolutely essential branch of digital investigation.
Speaker 2: Really it's that central now, Oh absolutely, The sheer volume
Speaker 2: and frankly the sensitivity of the data on these devices
Speaker 2: present unique challenges and you know, incredible opportunities for uncovering
Speaker 2: critical information. Right, It's about more than just pulling data
Speaker 2: off a phone. It's about validating its integrity, understanding its context,
Speaker 2: and making sure it can actually stand up in a
Speaker 2: legal setting. That's key.
Speaker 1: Okay, So our mission today navigate this intricate landscape of
Speaker 1: mobile operating systems. We're talking iOS, Android, maybe even a
Speaker 1: quick look at the now retired Windows phone. Yep.
Speaker 2: Got to cover the bases.
Speaker 1: Understanding their unique security features, the well sometimes cutting edge
Speaker 1: methods used to extract data, and what all this ultimately
Speaker 1: means for privacy and evidence. Sound good, sounds like a plan, right,
Speaker 1: So to kick us off for some someone may be
Speaker 1: new to this specific corner of digital investigation, What exactly
Speaker 1: is mobile forensics and what makes it one of the
Speaker 1: trickiest areas to master?
Speaker 2: Okay? At its core, mobile forensics is the let's say,
Speaker 2: scientific process of acquiring, recovering, and analyzing evidence from mobile devices.
Speaker 2: But it has to be done in a forensically sound manner.
Speaker 2: Forensically sound meaning repeatable, documented, and defensible. Now why is
Speaker 2: it so difficult? Well, unlike a traditional computer, where you
Speaker 2: can often use a rite protector, that's a hardware device
Speaker 2: that stops any data being written back to the original evidence.
Speaker 1: Drive right, I've heard of those.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that whole principle of not altering the original evidence
Speaker 2: is incredibly difficult with phones. A lot of forensic tools
Speaker 2: actually need two way communication with the device just to work.
Speaker 1: Wait. Really, so a simple right blocker just won't cut it.
Speaker 2: Often, No, the device needs to interact. So just connecting
Speaker 2: a phone to a forensic workstation could inherently change things
Speaker 2: on the device itself. Little things maybe, but changes nonetheless.
Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, that's a huge hurdle right from the start.
Speaker 1: Our guide even talks about like detaching chips or installing
Speaker 1: custom bootloaders. That sounds incredibly intense, almost like performing surgery
Speaker 1: on a phone.
Speaker 2: It absolutely can be, and yes, those methods exist. That's
Speaker 2: why the process is meticulously broken down. You've got seizure,
Speaker 2: then acquisition, and finally examination analysis three distinct phases.
Speaker 1: Okay, walk me through that seizure.
Speaker 2: Right, Let's think about the seizure phase. Imagine a phone
Speaker 2: is found and its switched on at a crime scene.
Speaker 2: Turning it off might seem logical.
Speaker 1: But but if it's locked or encrypted, you might lose
Speaker 1: access forever.
Speaker 2: Exactly so, examiners often try, if possible, to quickly enable
Speaker 2: flight mode first, cut off commutations right there. Then immediately
Speaker 2: it goes into a Faraday bag.
Speaker 1: A Faraday bag that's the metallic looking pouch.
Speaker 2: Uh huh. It's a special shielded container that blocks all
Speaker 2: radio signals, Wi Fi, cellular, Bluetooth, GPS, isolates it completely.
Speaker 1: Why is that so critical?
Speaker 2: Well, it prevents remote wipes. For one, someone could try
Speaker 2: to erase the phone remotely. It also stops any new
Speaker 2: data coming in like texts or notifications, which could overwrite older,
Speaker 2: potentially crucial evidence, and helps preserve battery life.
Speaker 1: Gotcha, So the immediate priority is basically to freeze the
Speaker 1: device in time, create a kind of digital bubble around it,
Speaker 1: preventing a remote wipe. That's something you might not immediately
Speaker 1: think of.
Speaker 2: Precisely, it's a major concern. And beyond just that initial seizure,
Speaker 2: the mobile landscape itself is a moving target. Think about it,
Speaker 2: the rapid evolution different manufactures, all the OS versions, constantly
Speaker 2: updated security features.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my phone updates constant right.
Speaker 2: So there's no single one size fits all tool or process.
Speaker 2: Examiners need really specialized knowledge and they have to constantly
Speaker 2: adapt their skills just to keep up. It's a continuous
Speaker 2: learning curve, a.
Speaker 1: Constant arms race. Basically, you could say that.
Speaker 2: Makes it one one of the most dynamic feels in
Speaker 2: digital forensics for sure.
Speaker 1: And it's not just digital stuff, right. The guide mentions
Speaker 1: phones can also hold traditional forensic evidence like.
Speaker 2: Fingerprints, absolutely, fingerprints, maybe DNA other trace evidence, so those
Speaker 2: need to be collected before any digital examination starts to
Speaker 2: avoid contamination. Standard procedure gloves are an absolute must.
Speaker 1: Okay, So device seized physical evidence collected, it's in the
Speaker 1: Faraday bag. Now the monumental task, Yeah, getting the data out.
Speaker 1: What are the main strategies these levels of extraction you
Speaker 1: mentioned right.
Speaker 2: The acquisition phase. There are several practical approaches and they're
Speaker 2: often categorized into tool leveling systems. Think of it as
Speaker 2: going from least intrusive to most extreme.
Speaker 1: Okay, Level one.
Speaker 2: First, you've got manual extraction. This is the most basic
Speaker 2: literally just browsing the device if you can unlock it,
Speaker 2: taking screenshots, photographing visible data. It's limited, obviously, but sometimes
Speaker 2: maybe with the damaged phone, it's all you can do.
Speaker 1: Makes sense.
Speaker 2: Next next up is logical analysis. This means extracting the
Speaker 2: accessible data using standard ways the phone communicates. Often this
Speaker 2: involves creating or analyzing device backups, the kind your phone
Speaker 2: might make automatically or that you make.
Speaker 1: Yourself, like an iTunes backup or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's exactly, or an Android backup. This method relies
Speaker 2: on the device being somewhat cooperative, you know, unlocked or unlockable.
Speaker 1: And the final level, the big one.
Speaker 2: That's physical acquisition. This is often seen as the holy
Speaker 2: grail for forensics. The goal here is to create a
Speaker 2: bit by bit raw image of the entire memory.
Speaker 1: Everything including deleted stuff.
Speaker 2: Potentially. Yes, it includes not just the currently accessible data,
Speaker 2: but also data in unallocated space, basically where deleted files
Speaker 2: might still reside before the space gets overwritten. That's where
Speaker 2: the real digging happens.
Speaker 1: Okay, physical acquisition, that's the ideal, But the guide mentioned
Speaker 1: some really advanced, almost sci fi methods, chip off and
Speaker 1: micro read. What are those about? When do you pull
Speaker 1: those out?
Speaker 2: Right? So this brings up the question what happens when
Speaker 2: a device is say, severely damaged, crushed, water logged, or
Speaker 2: it's locked solid and standard software methods just fail. Yeah,
Speaker 2: then what that's where these more hardware focused techniques come in.
Speaker 2: Chip office. Pretty much what it sounds like. You physically
Speaker 2: remove the memory chip, desorder it from the phone circuit board.
Speaker 2: Then that tiny chip is placed into a specialized chip
Speaker 2: reader or sometimes even onto another compatible phone board to
Speaker 2: extract the raw data directly.
Speaker 1: That sounds incredibly delicate and destructive.
Speaker 2: It is extremely technically challenging, needs serious hardware skills, and yeah,
Speaker 2: it destroys the original device in the process. So it's
Speaker 2: always a last resort, only used when the data is
Speaker 2: critical and other methods are exhausted.
Speaker 1: And there was another one, Chase.
Speaker 2: Something ah JTAG Joint Test Action Group that's slightly different.
Speaker 2: It uses standard test ports already built onto the circuit
Speaker 2: board for debugging during manufacturing. Investigators can sometimes connect to
Speaker 2: these ports to directly interact with the processor and try
Speaker 2: to dump the memory. It's less destructive than chip off,
Speaker 2: but still requires hardware access and isn't always possible, especially
Speaker 2: on newer and more secure devices.
Speaker 1: Okay, so chip off is physically removing it, JTAG is
Speaker 1: connecting to existing ports. Still sounds pretty hardcore.
Speaker 2: They are. And then there's the absolute extreme micro.
Speaker 1: Read micro read that sounds intense it is.
Speaker 2: Imagine using an electron microscope to manually view the physical gaits,
Speaker 2: the tiny on off switches on the memory chip itself,
Speaker 2: then painstakingly translating their status, their physical state into binary
Speaker 2: cone zero's and ones. You're kidding manually Manually It's unbelievably
Speaker 2: time consuming, incredibly expensive, and needs well unique expertise in
Speaker 2: both microscopy and memory architecture. You won't find commercial tools
Speaker 2: for this. It's reserved for like major national security cases,
Speaker 2: things where cost is no object and the data is paramount.
Speaker 1: Manually translating binary from looking at microscopic.
Speaker 2: Gates, which, wow, that puts into perspective the lengths investigators
Speaker 2: might go to.
Speaker 1: It really does. But look, regardless of the method, whether
Speaker 1: it's simple logical extraction or micro read, good forensic practice
Speaker 1: is absolutely critical, meaning securing the evidence, preserving its state,
Speaker 1: meticulously documenting everything, chain of custody, steps taken, tools use
Speaker 1: even down to calculating hash values to prove the data
Speaker 1: hasn't been altered.
Speaker 2: Hash values like a digital fingerprint for the data exactly
Speaker 2: and thorough reporting. The entire process has to be reproducible,
Speaker 2: step by step so it can stand up in court.
Speaker 2: Any changes, even tiny ones, must be documented and justified.
Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense. Let's switch gears a bit. Apple iPhones, iPads,
Speaker 1: billions of them out there, Investigators must run into them constantly.
Speaker 1: What's unique about iOS forensics? How does it differ from say,
Speaker 1: Android or even older systems.
Speaker 2: Right, iOS is a huge part of the landscape. The
Speaker 2: key thing to understand is that Apple builds its devices
Speaker 2: with layers of security baked in from the start. A
Speaker 2: major turning point was iOS four. From then on, the
Speaker 2: entire file system is encrypted by default, using a unique
Speaker 2: hardware key build into the device's process.
Speaker 1: The entire filesystem encrypted with the hardware key.
Speaker 2: Yes, and this is critical. It fundamentally changes the forensic
Speaker 2: approach for these newer iOS devices, that holy grail of
Speaker 2: physical acquisition, like chip off. It's largely useless if you
Speaker 2: have the chip, because even if you successfully pull the
Speaker 2: raw data off the chip, it's still encrypted and the
Speaker 2: key needed to decrypt. It is tied to the phone's
Speaker 2: specific hardware, particularly the secure Enclave processor. Without that key,
Speaker 2: the data dump is just an unreadable jumble of bits.
Speaker 1: So if my iPhone, anything from the four onwards is encrypted,
Speaker 1: physically removing the chip doesn't actually get you readable data.
Speaker 1: That's that's a really strong security measure, almost like an
Speaker 1: impenetrable wall for physical attacks.
Speaker 2: It's a very strong wall. Yes, it forces investigators away
Speaker 2: from pure hardware attacks and more towards software vulnerabilities or
Speaker 2: methods that require logical access like getting the pass code.
Speaker 1: Okay, and Apple has other security layers too, right, passcodes,
Speaker 1: face ID.
Speaker 2: Exactly, data protection, the passcode system touch I face ID,
Speaker 2: and also activation lock that's the feature requiring your Apple
Speaker 2: ID and password to erase or reactivate a device if
Speaker 2: it's wiped. These all add significant hurdles. And what about
Speaker 2: deleting data ah another key point. The erase all Content
Speaker 2: and Settings option on iOS doesn't just mark files for
Speaker 2: deletion like on some systems, It actually destroys the encryption
Speaker 2: keys used for that data, so the.
Speaker 1: Data becomes cryptographically unrecoverable.
Speaker 2: Precisely for forensic investigators. That means the data is effectively gone.
Speaker 2: It's a very different mechanism than just deleting a file pointer.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's a powerful and pretty final action for a user.
Speaker 2: It is now one important workaround investigator Sometimes used, though
Speaker 2: it comes with big caveats, is jail braking.
Speaker 1: Jail braking I've heard that. Isn't that like hacking your
Speaker 1: own phone?
Speaker 2: Sort of? It removes Apple software restrictions, allows running sign code,
Speaker 2: and crucially can grant root access. That's administrative level privilege
Speaker 2: essential for getting a full image of the file system.
Speaker 1: So it bypasses some of Apple's locks.
Speaker 2: It can, yes, but and this is a big butt,
Speaker 2: avoids the warranty. It can make the phone unstable, and
Speaker 2: there's always a risk of bricking the device, rendering it completely.
Speaker 1: Unusable, breaking it yikes. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Plus, the act of jail breaking itself significantly alters the
Speaker 2: devices software, which raises potential issues for evidence integrity in court,
Speaker 2: and specific jail breaks only work on specific iOS versions
Speaker 2: and devices, so it's a constant cat and mouse game
Speaker 2: between Apple patching vulnerabilities and the jail break community find
Speaker 2: in new ones.
Speaker 1: So it's a really high stakes gamble for investigators. More
Speaker 1: access maybe, but huge risks definitely.
Speaker 2: That's why a critical and much safer alternative source of
Speaker 2: evidence is often iOS backups.
Speaker 1: The ones made with iTunes or iCloud.
Speaker 2: Exactly, both iTunes backups save to a computer and iCloud
Speaker 2: backups stored online can be incredibly rich sources of information. Contacts, messages,
Speaker 2: call logs, app data, photos, lots of stuff.
Speaker 1: Is one better than the other.
Speaker 2: Encrypted iTunes backups often contain more sensitive data than standard
Speaker 2: iCloud backups, things like saved passwords, Wi Fi settings, health data,
Speaker 2: and call history. So if investigators can get access to
Speaker 2: the computer the phone was backed up to and potentially
Speaker 2: crack the backup.
Speaker 1: Passwords, crack the password well.
Speaker 2: The guide mentions tools like elkom ceft phone breaker. These
Speaker 2: can perform brute force attacks trying every possible combination or
Speaker 2: dictionary attacks using lists of common words and passwords.
Speaker 1: But I bet Apple makes that hard too.
Speaker 2: Increasingly so, the guide notes that from iOS ten point
Speaker 2: two onwards, the encryption used for backups involves something like
Speaker 2: ten million computation iterations to.
Speaker 1: Derive the key ten million. Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it makes cracking those passwords exponentially harder and slower
Speaker 2: compared to older versions. It really highlights that ongoing arms
Speaker 2: race between security and forensic access definitely.
Speaker 1: So when analysts get this data backups or otherwise, what
Speaker 1: are they looking at?
Speaker 2: Well, they need to deal with different timestamp formats. First,
Speaker 2: You've got UNIX, epoch time, MAC absolute time, even WebKit
Speaker 2: time used by the browsers. They all measure time differently.
Speaker 1: Okay, timestamps and the actual data.
Speaker 2: A lot of the critical user data contacts, SMS messages,
Speaker 2: call history, safari, web history notes is stored in school
Speaker 2: light databases. These are basically lightweight relational databases very common
Speaker 2: in mobile apps.
Speaker 1: Poll aake donaically like a database.
Speaker 2: File exactly, and also property lists files or dot blist files.
Speaker 2: These are structured XML or binary files Apple uses to
Speaker 2: store settings and data. Commercial forensic tools like Celebrate EDED
Speaker 2: or magnet exiome are specifically designed to find, parse and
Speaker 2: present data from these skillet and PLST files, even recovering
Speaker 2: deleted records from within the databases where possible.
Speaker 1: Got it. Okay, let's move over to the other giant Android.
Speaker 1: It powers most smartphones globally, known for its open, customizable nature.
Speaker 1: How does that open affect forensic investigations? Compared to Apple's
Speaker 1: walled garden.
Speaker 2: That openness is the defining factor. Really. Android is Linux based,
Speaker 2: developed by a consortion led by Google and used by
Speaker 2: hundreds of manufacturers. This means you have a huge variety
Speaker 2: of devices, hardware components, customized versions of Android, different filesystems,
Speaker 2: varying security implementations.
Speaker 1: So way less standardized than iOS.
Speaker 2: Much less. This creates both challenges. Investigators need tools and
Speaker 2: techniques that work across this massive diversity and opportunities, and
Speaker 2: sometimes that openness can provide different avenues for access compared
Speaker 2: to the more locked down iOS.
Speaker 1: Right and Android versions used to have those fun dessert names,
Speaker 1: but now it's just numbers. But the guide says security
Speaker 1: has ramped up significantly with each version, things like FD
Speaker 1: and c Linux.
Speaker 2: Absolutely early Android versions were less secure, but modern Android
Speaker 2: has robust security features. FD stands for full disc encryption,
Speaker 2: which encrypts the entire user data partition, similar in concept
Speaker 2: to iOS, but implemented differently, and see Linux Security enhancem
Speaker 2: Linux is a.
Speaker 1: Major edition See Linux. What does that do?
Speaker 2: It implements something called mandatory access control or MSEEC. Think
Speaker 2: of it like this. By default, everything is denied. Access
Speaker 2: is only granted if there's an explicit rule allowing it.
Speaker 2: This provides really strong isolation between apps and system processes,
Speaker 2: making it much harder for malware to gain elevated privileges
Speaker 2: or access data it shouldn't.
Speaker 1: So even if you install a bad app, SELinux tries
Speaker 1: to keep it contained in its own little sandbox.
Speaker 2: That's the goal. Yes, it significantly hardens the system against
Speaker 2: privileged escalation attacks. Android also uses an application sandbox where
Speaker 2: each app runs as its own user, secure ways for
Speaker 2: apps to communicate IPC, and requires all apps to be
Speaker 2: digitally signed.
Speaker 1: Okay, so Android is also pretty locked down. How do
Speaker 1: investigators get deeper access? Then? You mentioned jail breaking for iOS.
Speaker 1: Is there an Android equivalent?
Speaker 2: Yes? The equivalent concept is rooting the device. Rooting grant's
Speaker 2: super user or root privileges the high level of access
Speaker 2: in a Linux based system. This allows access to everything,
Speaker 2: including protected system files and directories like data data, where
Speaker 2: most private user and application data lives.
Speaker 1: But like jail breaking, rooting must have.
Speaker 2: Risks, right huge risks. First, rooting fundamentally alters the device's
Speaker 2: system software, which again raises evidence integrity questions. Second, the
Speaker 2: process itself can vary wildly depending on the device model
Speaker 2: and Android version, and critically on some devices like Google
Speaker 2: Zone Nexus or Pixel phones. Unlocking the bootloader often a
Speaker 2: prerequisite for routing automatically triggers a factory reset, wiping all
Speaker 2: user data.
Speaker 1: It wipes the data just to allow rooting. That's counterproductive
Speaker 1: for forensics.
Speaker 2: Exactly, it could destroy the very evidence you're trying to recover,
Speaker 2: So investigators have to be incredibly careful, know the specific
Speaker 2: device behavior, get proper authorization, and usually test the exact
Speaker 2: procedure on an identical, non evidentiary device.
Speaker 1: First. Wow, that sounds like walking a tightrope.
Speaker 2: It can be, and for newer devices using FBE file
Speaker 2: based encryption common since and seven point zero, a permanent
Speaker 2: root method often isn't even feasible for acquisition while the
Speaker 2: device is running normally. Investigators might have to rely on
Speaker 2: custom recovery environments or temporary root methods.
Speaker 1: Okay, so, assuming they can get some level access, what
Speaker 1: tools do they use?
Speaker 2: Fundamental tool is the Android the bug bridge or ADB.
Speaker 2: It's a command line utility that allows communication with an
Speaker 2: Android device. It's used for installing apps, copying files, running
Speaker 2: shell commands.
Speaker 1: Very powerful, but doesn't that require developer settings to be enabled.
Speaker 2: Yes, USB debugging needs to be turned on in the
Speaker 2: device's settings, and since Android four point two point two,
Speaker 2: there's secure USB debugging. When you connect an ADB enabled
Speaker 2: device to a new computer, the phone pops up a
Speaker 2: prompt asking you to authorize that computer. Without that authorization,
Speaker 2: ADB commands won't work.
Speaker 1: On another security layer.
Speaker 2: Right. But if USB debugging is enabled and the connecting
Speaker 2: computer is authorized or authorization can be bypassed, ADB can
Speaker 2: be used to pull data, sometimes even entire partitions, off
Speaker 2: the device. Forensic suites like autopsy can then analyze these
Speaker 2: acquired images or file dumps.
Speaker 1: The guy detailed some wild screenlock bypass techniques for Android two.
Speaker 1: Using ADB to delete the gesture file something called a
Speaker 1: smudge attack.
Speaker 2: Huh, Yes, the smuge attack. That's literally looking for the
Speaker 2: oily resnue patterns left on a touchscreen to try and
Speaker 2: guess the unlock pattern. Low tech but sometimes effective.
Speaker 1: Amazing and crashing the lock screen UI on older versions,
Speaker 1: pulling ADB keys from a suspects computer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are numerous techniques, some highly technical, some exploiting
Speaker 2: specific bugs in older Android versions. If investigators can find
Speaker 2: the adbkey dot pub file on a suspects computer that
Speaker 2: was previously authorized to debug the phone. They can sometimes
Speaker 2: use that key to authorize their own forensic workstation and
Speaker 2: bypass the secure USB debugging.
Speaker 1: Prompt, like stealing the keys to the Kingdom.
Speaker 2: In a digital sense, yes, it highlights the creative problem
Speaker 2: solving often needed.
Speaker 1: What about storage on Android? Is it different from iOS?
Speaker 2: It can be. Android devices often use standard file systems.
Speaker 2: External sd cards commonly use FAT thirty two or xat
Speaker 2: the internal memory, partitions like system and user data typically
Speaker 2: use Linux filesystems like ext four. Older devices might have
Speaker 2: used YFFS two.
Speaker 1: Is recovering deleted data easier then Sometimes?
Speaker 2: Recovering deleted files from an SD card using standard filecarving
Speaker 2: techniques is often more straightforward than from internal memory. Internal
Speaker 2: memory might use proprietary filesystem extensions or encryption. FDFP complicates
Speaker 2: things significantly. Also, how the phone connects to a computer matters.
Speaker 2: If it uses MTP Media Transfer Protocol or PTP Picture
Speaker 2: Transfer Protocol instead of presenting itself as a standard USB
Speaker 2: mass storage drive, you can't just mount it and run
Speaker 2: standard recovery tools directly.
Speaker 1: MTPPTP that's usually the default now right for transferring photos.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's more common now and more restrictive from a
Speaker 2: forensic standpoint.
Speaker 1: In the apps themselves, the guide mentioned analyzing Facebook, WhatsApp, Skype, Gmail, Chrome,
Speaker 1: finding contacts, messages, logs, ip addresses, cached videos, even browsing
Speaker 1: history sync from other devices. That sounds like a gold mine.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, app analysis is huge. So much communication and activity
Speaker 2: happens within apps. Investigators often have to manually examine the
Speaker 2: sake lite databases each app uses, as the structure can
Speaker 2: change with app updates. They looked for messages, contact lists, timestamps,
Speaker 2: location data, cached files. The list goes on. The data
Speaker 2: recovered from apps can be incredibly revealing, But there's.
Speaker 1: A dark site to Android's openness too, right.
Speaker 2: Malware Definitely That openness, particularly the ability to sideload apps
Speaker 2: from outside the official Google Play store, makes Android a
Speaker 2: much bigger target for malware than iOS. The guide cited
Speaker 2: as statistic Android devices being potentially fifty times more infected
Speaker 2: than iOS devices.
Speaker 1: Fifty times. That's staggering.
Speaker 2: It is. While Google Play has protections Google Play Protect,
Speaker 2: malicious apps still slip through and users installing apps from
Speaker 2: untrusted sources is a major risk factor. We saw things
Speaker 2: like the agent Smith infecting millions of devices back in
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, often by replacing legitimate apps with malicious versions.
Speaker 1: Wow, okay, that really highlights the trade offs of that
Speaker 1: open ecosystem. Let's quickly touch on the third player mentioned.
Speaker 1: Windows Phone less common now obviously, but investigators might still
Speaker 1: encounter older devices. Anything unique there, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Windows Phone, though discontinued by Microsoft, had its own distinct
Speaker 2: security architecture. It was built around a concept called chambers.
Speaker 2: Think of them as isolated compartments where processes run with
Speaker 2: specific limited privileges based on the principle of least privilege.
Speaker 1: So similar security ideas to iOS and Android, just different terminology.
Speaker 2: Pretty much isolation, limited privileges, common security goals. Windows Phone
Speaker 2: also used Microsoft's BitLocker technology for full disc encryption.
Speaker 1: Was getting data off them easy or hard?
Speaker 2: Generally considered challenging, especially now. Commercial forensic tool support is
Speaker 2: very limited today because the platform isn't active, Examiners offen
Speaker 2: needed to install special agents onto the device to facilitate
Speaker 2: data extraction, which again involves altering the device.
Speaker 1: Altering the evidence. The recurring theme exactly.
Speaker 2: Key artifacts like contacts and SMS messages were often stored
Speaker 2: in specific database files like Storre dot Voll within the
Speaker 2: filesystem structure, but accessing that filesystem was the main hurdle.
Speaker 1: Okay, and across all these platforms, iOS, Android, Windows Phone,
Speaker 1: third party apps are crucial sources of evidence. But the
Speaker 1: guide stress that no single forensic tool can perfectly parse
Speaker 1: every app because they update so constantly. That must be
Speaker 1: a major headache.
Speaker 2: It's a massive challenge. App developers are constantly changing how
Speaker 2: their apps work, how they store data, the encryption they use.
Speaker 2: Forensic tools are always playing catchup.
Speaker 1: So if the tools can't keep up, what's an investigator
Speaker 1: to do just give up on that app data?
Speaker 2: No, not at all. This is where manual analysis becomes
Speaker 2: absolutely critical. Investigators might have to manually examine the app's files,
Speaker 2: especially sklight databases, try to understand the data structures themselves.
Speaker 2: Sometimes they need to test the app on a known
Speaker 2: device to see how it behaves and where it stores information.
Speaker 1: And you menagine reverse engineering, Yes.
Speaker 2: Sometimes that's necessary. For Android, for instance, they might take
Speaker 2: the app's installation file, the APK file and decompile it.
Speaker 2: Tools like dex two jar can convert the app's code
Speaker 2: into Java byte code, and then something like jdgui can
Speaker 2: decompile that into more or less readable Java source code.
Speaker 1: So they're literally looking at the apps programming to figure
Speaker 1: out how it hies or stores data.
Speaker 2: Exactly, to understand data formats, custom encoding schemes, or even
Speaker 2: encryption algorithms used within the app. They also need to
Speaker 2: understand the difference between simple encoding, which just transforms data
Speaker 2: representation like Base sixty four, and actual encryption, which is
Speaker 2: designed for confidentiality and requires a key. Encoding can usually
Speaker 2: be reversed easily. Encryption is much harder without the key, So.
Speaker 1: If your fancy forensic tool strikes out on a popular
Speaker 1: chat app, the investigator might have to roll up their
Speaker 1: sleeves into databases manually, or even decompile the app's code.
Speaker 1: That's some serious dedication, it is.
Speaker 2: It really emphasizes the need for deep specialized knowledge, not
Speaker 2: just reliance on automated tools. Understanding how this specific app
Speaker 2: stores its specific data on this specific OS version. That's
Speaker 2: often the difference between finding some evidence and finding all
Speaker 2: the evidence.
Speaker 1: Wow, what an absolutely incredible deep dives. We've gone from
Speaker 1: Faraday bags to electron microscopes, jail breaking phones to analyzing
Speaker 1: oily smudges on screens. The world of mobile forensics is
Speaker 1: just unbelievably complex and constantly shifting, isn't it.
Speaker 2: It really is fast paced and challenging.
Speaker 1: It truly makes you think about the sheer, almost overwhelming
Speaker 1: volume of personal information our phones hold, and the incredibly
Speaker 1: sophisticated ways that information can be accessed or conversely, how
Speaker 1: fiercely it can be protected.
Speaker 2: And if we connect this to the bigger picture, I
Speaker 2: think it really underscores two things. One the undeniable power
Speaker 2: of digital evidence and modern investigations, and two the critical
Speaker 2: importance for all of us to understand our own device
Speaker 2: security and data privacy. Every app you install, every permission
Speaker 2: you grant, every setting you toggle, every OS update, it
Speaker 2: all plays a role in what information about you is
Speaker 2: accessible and how well it's actually protected. It's not just theoretical.
Speaker 1: This has been such a fascinating look behind the curtain
Speaker 1: into a world most of us never really consider, even
Speaker 1: though we carry these devices everywhere. So for you, our listener,
Speaker 1: maybe here's a provocative thought to chew on as we
Speaker 1: wrap up with mobile technology advancing at lightning speed, and
Speaker 1: these forensic techniques becoming ever more sophisticated, Will true absolute
Speaker 1: digital privacy ever really be an achievable goal, or pretty
Speaker 1: much every aspect of our lives now in some way
Speaker 1: fundamentally traceable something to think about,