Enhanced mobile forensic process model for hand-held devices – A case of smartphones

Abstract

This research is aimed at developing an operating system independent mobile forensics Process Model for Hand-held devices. The earlier works in digital forensics process model have mainly concentrated on process models for computers while those that have dealt with mobile devices are mainly Operating system specific hence they can only be applied to a specific Operating System mobile device. In order to yield the enhanced process model, the researcher examines the various existing process models tailored for the specific operating Systems picking the outstanding phases and combining these various phases to give a neutral yet an enriched process model which is Operating system independent. The proposed Hand-held Process Model is tested using two types of Phones that run different Operating Systems namely iPhone (iOS) and Samsung Galaxy S III (Android OS). Three mobile Forensics tools mainly Celebrate UFED Physical Analyzer, Oxygen Forensic Suite 2013 and MOBIL edit forensics Lite are used to facilitate the experimental tests.