Question

What is the problem or topic you wish to ? How will you approach this research? Why is this of interest to you and why should we be interested in this topic? Here you say what you will be doing in the remainder of the report so define carefully your interests and the parameters (scope) of your projected work. As you collect material and structure an outline keep referring to this section. Write a minimum of 1000 words

Topic - Smartphone forensics

Answer 1

Smartphone forensics is a branch of digital forensics relating to recovery of digital evidence or data from a mobile device under forensically sound conditions.

The use of mobile phones/devices in crime was widely recognised for some years, but the forensic study of mobile devices is a relatively new field, dating from the early 2000s and late 1990s. A proliferation of phones (particularly smartphones) and other digital devices on the consumer market caused a demand for forensic examination of the devices, which could not be met by existing computer forensics techniques.

There is growing need for mobile forensics due to several reasons and some of the prominent reasons are:

• Use of mobile phones to store and transmit personal and corporate information
• Use of mobile phones in online transactions
• Law enforcement, criminals and mobile phone devices

Mobile device forensics is best known for its application to law enforcement investigations, but it is also useful for military intelligence, corporate investigations, private investigations, criminal and civil defense, and electronic discovery.

One of the biggest problems faced by this industry currently is, an increasing amount of data containing information very valuable to forensic investigations, is never saved on mobile devices in the first place but in cloud storage instead – be it by the devices OS or third- party apps data. Cloud backups also offer the chance to recover data deleted by the user or the data of locked, broken or wiped devices. However, acquiring this data is not only difficult because of legal constraints – depending on the country the investigation takes place in – but also because of security mechanisms like separate passwords and 2-factor authentication methods. As a result, special software is required to acquire cloud data in a forensically way.

We learned recently from former FBI Director James Comey that “the cell phone is probably the single most important piece of evidence you will find at a crime scene today.” This is profound and important to digest. Each year we see new iterations of these issues, as the IoT evolves, and cell technology, both their devices and platforms, are enhanced. These changes in technology mean that industry must be consistently ahead of the curve.