Research pick: Digital forensics - "Mobile phone forensics – a systematic approach, tools, techniques and challenges"

A systematic approach to mobile phone forensics is discussed in the International Journal of Electronic Security and Digital Forensics. Manish Kumar of the M.S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology in Bangalore, India, that insight and understanding the digital tools available in this sphere are important in both civil and criminal legal cases as well as in the broader fight against organized crime and terrorist activity.

With the exponential growth in digital devices, computers, laptops, and mobile phones the demand from law enforcement for digital forensics has grown apace. With every release of new software and hardware, there is a need for the tools to advance, the tools must also be able to cope with broken or otherwise compromised devices. This is especially the case as criminals and others of malicious intent develop the ways and means to protect their devices from forensic examination. Critically, the forensic tools uses must themselves be compliant with the law in order to offer admissible evidence in court that can uphold a conviction.

The forensic investigator must also be aware that a seized device may be PIN or password protected and may be retrieved in either the on or off state, and internal battery status as this can all affect what evidence might be obtained. In a certain state, an outside criminal party might have the ability to erase a device remotely if appropriate protections are not put in place on being seized from a crime scene or elsewhere. An expeditious examination can allow communication data, such as call logs, contact details, even text messages to be extracted from a mobile phone, for instance. Application data and multimedia files might also be accessible as well as internet history, GPS data, and cloud storage data.

Kumar discusses in detail the various levels of forensic examination available and what level of evidence might be retrieved when used expertly. “Evidence extraction and analysis is always a challenging job. The success completely relies on the approach, tools, techniques, and the skill-set of the examiner. There is no single straight-forward approach which can be applied in all situations,” Kumar writes.

Kumar, M. (2021) ‘Mobile phone forensics – a systematic approach, tools, techniques and challenges’, Int. J. Electronic Security and Digital Forensics, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp.64–87.