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Book Review: Digital Forensics For Handheld Devices
benrothke writes "Today's handheld device is the mainframe of years past. An iPhone 5 with 64 GB of storage and the Apple A6 system-on-a-chip processor has more raw computing power entire data centers had some years ago. With billions of handheld devices in use worldwide, it is imperative that digital forensics investigators and others know how to ensure that the information contained in them, can be legally preserved if needed." Read on for the rest of Ben's review.
Digital Forensics for Handheld Devices
author
Dr. Eamon P. Doherty
pages
336
publisher
CRC Press
rating
8/10
reviewer
Ben Rothke
ISBN
978-1439898772
summary
Valuable reference for digital forensics
In Digital Forensics for Handheld Devices, author Eamon Doherty provides an invaluable resource on how one can obtain data, examine it and prepare it as evidence for court. One of the reasons many computer crime cases fail to be prosecuted is that the evidence was not properly handled and could therefore not be admitted into court.
Once of the first things a defense attorney will do in a computer crime case is to attack how the digital evidence was obtained and preserved. In far too many cases, it was done incorrectly and the evidence, no matter that it may be a smoking gun, can't be admitted into court. The case then is dismissed, to the chagrin of the victim.
The books 8 chapters of nearly 300 pages are densely packed text, where Doherty brings significant real-world experience to every chapter. As the cybercrime training lab director at Fairleigh Dickinson University, he brings both an academic formality in additional to real-world experience in this highly tactical guide.
Chapter 1 details cell phone forensics. After a brief introduction to the history of the cell phone, it details the entire inner workings of a cell phone. The chapter also details differences in cell phones worldwide. An important fact is that many Asian countries have cell phones available 12-18 months before they appear in the US. With that, American forensic investigators need to be cognizant of this when entering into an investigation.
The chapter includes an overview of the Susteen Secure View application which is an extremely powerful tool for the mobile phone forensic investigator. Besides that tool, in each chapter, Doherty lists many tools that provide specific assistance to the topic at hand. The book is worth it for those listings alone.
Chapter 2 is similar to the previous chapter except this is about digital camera forensics. The chapter provides a detailed overview of how digital cameras operate and how the underlying hardware works. The chapter includes an extremely comprehensive overview of seemingly every tool available to investigate images on a digital camera.
The chapter also includes a number of fascinating case studies on how to effectively perform a forensics analysis of a digital camera. It concludes with an observation that when considering a career in forensics, as fascinating as it is; it may not be for everyone.
Doherty notes that as a forensics investigator, the examiner is often exposed to disturbing material. He quotes a report that studied investigators from over 500 agencies who had been exposed to child pornography during investigation of crime involving child exportation. The report noted an alarming 35% of the participants had problems arising from work exposure to child pornography.
Chapter 5 provides an extremely detailed look at forensics investigation on a corporate network. Throughout the book, Doherty stresses the need for effective chain of custody and other issues to preserve digital evidence. It is imperative to preserve the integrity of the digital evidence obtained from the time it was seized until it is presented in court.
To facilitate this, the book states a best practice to use checklists to ensure nothing is forgotten. The importance of checklists has been detailed in The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right where author Atul Gawande makes a compelling case for the use of checklists.
As to evidence and checklists, Doherty writes that once the evidence is obtained, a chain of custody form should be filled out. Each time the evidence is copied, processed, or transported, it should be documented on the chain of custody form. If others receive a copy of the evidence for prosecution or defense purposes, they too should sign for it. This is an imperative if it expected that the evidence would end up in court or be used for human resources purposes. But at the corporate setting detailed in chapter 5, that same level of diligence is not necessarily required.
Chapter 5 also has overviews of nearly 50 different forensic tools for every imaginable purpose.
While the book has exploratory and technical overviews on many tools and numerous case studies, this is not an introductory text on the subject. It is meant for someone with a technical background that is looking for a technical reference to gain competence on the topic of digital forensics.
The only lacking of the book is that while the author is an expert on the topic and the tools, the writing style is one that screams out for an editor. The text suffers from run on sentences and repetition of defining the same acronym, in addition to other readability issues. The book is pervasive its use of passive voice that can be annoying to many readers. It is hoped that the second edition of this book will be updated with the current tools of the time and a good re-editing of the text to ensure its readability doesn't suffer.
Aside from the grammatical issues, for those looking for a very hands-on guide to gain proficiency on the topic, Digital Forensics for Handheld Devices is a valuable reference. Dr. Eamon Doherty has a unique perspective in that he has academic, law enforcement and very practical experience, which is manifest in every chapter.
The notion of digital forensics is seize it, examine it and then prepare it for evidence in court. In Digital Forensics for Handheld Devices, you found out how to do just that.
Ben Rothke is the author of Computer Security: 20 Things Every Employee Should Know.
You can purchase from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Once of the first things a defense attorney will do in a computer crime case is to attack how the digital evidence was obtained and preserved. In far too many cases, it was done incorrectly and the evidence, no matter that it may be a smoking gun, can't be admitted into court. The case then is dismissed, to the chagrin of the victim.
The books 8 chapters of nearly 300 pages are densely packed text, where Doherty brings significant real-world experience to every chapter. As the cybercrime training lab director at Fairleigh Dickinson University, he brings both an academic formality in additional to real-world experience in this highly tactical guide.
Chapter 1 details cell phone forensics. After a brief introduction to the history of the cell phone, it details the entire inner workings of a cell phone. The chapter also details differences in cell phones worldwide. An important fact is that many Asian countries have cell phones available 12-18 months before they appear in the US. With that, American forensic investigators need to be cognizant of this when entering into an investigation.
The chapter includes an overview of the Susteen Secure View application which is an extremely powerful tool for the mobile phone forensic investigator. Besides that tool, in each chapter, Doherty lists many tools that provide specific assistance to the topic at hand. The book is worth it for those listings alone.
Chapter 2 is similar to the previous chapter except this is about digital camera forensics. The chapter provides a detailed overview of how digital cameras operate and how the underlying hardware works. The chapter includes an extremely comprehensive overview of seemingly every tool available to investigate images on a digital camera.
The chapter also includes a number of fascinating case studies on how to effectively perform a forensics analysis of a digital camera. It concludes with an observation that when considering a career in forensics, as fascinating as it is; it may not be for everyone.
Doherty notes that as a forensics investigator, the examiner is often exposed to disturbing material. He quotes a report that studied investigators from over 500 agencies who had been exposed to child pornography during investigation of crime involving child exportation. The report noted an alarming 35% of the participants had problems arising from work exposure to child pornography.
Chapter 5 provides an extremely detailed look at forensics investigation on a corporate network. Throughout the book, Doherty stresses the need for effective chain of custody and other issues to preserve digital evidence. It is imperative to preserve the integrity of the digital evidence obtained from the time it was seized until it is presented in court.
To facilitate this, the book states a best practice to use checklists to ensure nothing is forgotten. The importance of checklists has been detailed in The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right where author Atul Gawande makes a compelling case for the use of checklists.
As to evidence and checklists, Doherty writes that once the evidence is obtained, a chain of custody form should be filled out. Each time the evidence is copied, processed, or transported, it should be documented on the chain of custody form. If others receive a copy of the evidence for prosecution or defense purposes, they too should sign for it. This is an imperative if it expected that the evidence would end up in court or be used for human resources purposes. But at the corporate setting detailed in chapter 5, that same level of diligence is not necessarily required.
Chapter 5 also has overviews of nearly 50 different forensic tools for every imaginable purpose.
While the book has exploratory and technical overviews on many tools and numerous case studies, this is not an introductory text on the subject. It is meant for someone with a technical background that is looking for a technical reference to gain competence on the topic of digital forensics.
The only lacking of the book is that while the author is an expert on the topic and the tools, the writing style is one that screams out for an editor. The text suffers from run on sentences and repetition of defining the same acronym, in addition to other readability issues. The book is pervasive its use of passive voice that can be annoying to many readers. It is hoped that the second edition of this book will be updated with the current tools of the time and a good re-editing of the text to ensure its readability doesn't suffer.
Aside from the grammatical issues, for those looking for a very hands-on guide to gain proficiency on the topic, Digital Forensics for Handheld Devices is a valuable reference. Dr. Eamon Doherty has a unique perspective in that he has academic, law enforcement and very practical experience, which is manifest in every chapter.
The notion of digital forensics is seize it, examine it and then prepare it for evidence in court. In Digital Forensics for Handheld Devices, you found out how to do just that.
Ben Rothke is the author of Computer Security: 20 Things Every Employee Should Know.
You can purchase from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
I would say it depends who is the 'victim'. Yes, protect your handheld data. Encrypt the hell out of it and/or find a good way to wipe it clean before the wrong people get to it..
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
If I want it preserved, I'll copy it to local storage or upload it to the cloud if I so choose. Other than that, if I hit the wipe button there better be smoke coming from it.
If I wanted it "preserved" I wouldn't be wiping it out in the first place.
I'm a satanic clam.
How exactly is the datacenter class raw computing power on the Apple A6 system-on-a-chip processor relevant to crime, forensics and the checklists?
Computing. Some Hitler or cult leader might come along and you never know. With the likes of this guy.
Is there an app that will make my phone smoke and melt into itself, a la Mission Impossible, taking all of my pr0n with it? I wouldn't want that stuff to fall into the wrong hands. Like my wife.
Thanks for clearing up what Lady Macbeth was referring to!
Set your phasers on "funky"!
On one hand, dumping the contacts, text messages, and other items from a phone would be a vast boon for exposing a crime ring for investigators. However, on the other hand, any forensic device that can be used by LEOs can be used by criminals for gain as well.
If one separates a corporate officer from their phone and is able to completely dump the contents, it would mean a gold mine. Competitors would buy contact lists, spreadsheets (accounts payable/receivable), unannounced product sheets, etc. Employee payroll info can be sold to ID thieves, and the fact that these employees are at work at this time can be sold to local gangs for burglaries/home invasions. If the employee has any military employment, that info and their family info can be sold to foreign intel agencies, etc.
The trick is defense in depth. Yes, iPhones and some Android devices have device encryption, but the best thing is having encryption on the app level. To get around that, the blackhats would have to find a way to stick a keylogger on the device, as opposed to just a single snatch of the device and a dump.
iPhone and Apple are trademarks..a generic "smartphone" terminology would have done the job pretty well
Since the iPhone is locked down so much, and all you all data is backed up to their cloud. What have you got to worry about?
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
You simply need to cover the flash memory with thermite and figure out some way to ignite it.
Unlike other physical and tangle forms of evidence, digital evidence is both nothing and something at the same time. It's too easy to both plant evidence (by either the defendant or the prosecution) and sometimes impossible to deny the evidence.
Furthermore, digital evidence doesn't necessary mean that I am the author. I don't have my phone on me at all times. I let friends use it.
This being said, I'm not discounting the importance of forensics. I just think more needs to happen before we can say something is evidence. Mind you, the large majority of crimes are committed by idiots who post pictures of their crime on Facebook. But for the small percentage of us who are either nefarious and trying to take advantage of the legal system or an innocent victim to circumstance, it's too ambiguous to say all the data on my phone is my own. (Wasn't Carrier ID a few years ago?)
Granted every piece of evidence has some sort of flaw of authentication. But I fear the day that I get arrested for posting "I just robbed this place!" about getting free coffee next to a bank that was getting robbed. (Yes, I would have an alibi, but let's not let this flaw ruin a good analogy.)
We don't live in Shouldland.
Sorry, the opening line was just stupid. Sure, mobile devices are more powerful than desktop computers from a handful of years ago, but you have to go back a lot longer to match an entire datacenter.
someone is out there helping the French Su^rete' tighten up their evidence chains. What? Don't you hate the terrorists?
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
BYOD deserves mention in this context. While a lot of people are in love with the idea of bringing their own devices to work, they have not fully considered the legal implications of doing that. If an employer is involved in a dispute and there is any potential that any relevant information could be on the device, the device will be subjected to collection activities. Personal contacts, emails, photos, passwords (potentially) will be collected. The device owner will be without the device for hours, or potentially even days or weeks while the forensics are done.
I have seen it happen. I work with a company that has an established presence in the eDiscovery / EDRM space. Our teams are out doing forensic collections all the time, and it is more and more common to see employees end up in pissing matches with their internal legal and HR departments over who "owns" a device that has been used for work purposes. The employee always loses. Having paid for a device does not exclude them from the collection process.
I am presently working on a degree in digital forensics. Courses include how to work with mobile devices.
Step 1 NEVER use any cloud systems for backups. all they have to do is supeona Apple to get your iphone data, or Google to get your android data.
step 2 set the encryption. They cant read the contents if you have strong encryption.
step 3 Live paranoid. If you are near a river and a cop is trying to steal your phone, Throw it hard into the river. They will never recover it. Be ready to destroy it, I mean really destroy it like wrapped in Det cord, thermite, drill press through the flash chip kind of destroy it.
Otherwise, just give it up and smile you have nothing to hide do you citizen.....
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
it is imperative that users install and use the highest level crypto they can lay their hands on in order to thwart the police state from seizing their data without a court order.
Model rocket igniter in a packet of thermite, connected to relay off device battery, tripped by a stripped down version of the "android IOIO" type devices with only one io, soldered off the usb ports junction at the board, activated by android service running in background that pings a remote service.
Sounds complicated, but maybe...? :)
Seriously, there's no reason why you couldn't have left the headline smartphone-agnostic rather than add fanboy comments.
Dudeâ¦.get a gripâ¦he was trying to make a point and I think you took way too literal of an interpretation of it.
sometimes and intro is just an intro....
'some years ago' could mean 25 years....and in that case, yes; an iPhone 5 def. has more memory and CPU power than an IBM mainframe circa 1987.
chill.
Faulty Sony (or other inferior Chinese made Li-Ion) battery. Totally deniability. ;)
Now the tricky part is for you to set it off under full control instead of it bursting into flame on its own. May be some funny code in the charge controller firmware?
Today's handheld device is the mainframe of years past. An iPhone 5 with 64 GB of storage and the Apple A6 system-on-a-chip processor has more raw computing power entire data centers had some years ago.
How long ago was this? When data centers used tubes?
Wow, What a well thought out, rationale response by an expert in the field....
Dude - take an anger mgmt class.
"The book is pervasive its use of passive voice that can be annoying to many readers. It is hoped that the second edition of this book will be updated with the current tools of the time and a good re-editing of the text to ensure its readability doesn't suffer."
It is to be hoped that critiques of the use of the passive voice are not self conciously ironic.
easy.
red phosphorous and a cigarette lighter.
I used to make diskette bombs with red phosphorous. Dramatic but fairly harmless. Unless you're a floppy disk drive.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
"Today's handheld device is the mainframe of years past."
Isn't it more like today's handheld is the supercomputer of decades past? A mainfarme excels in crunching databases, while a supercomputer excels at doing "tasks" faster than even the typical liquid nitrogen-cooled desktop.
Note that I'm using "task" in not in the computer sense of "multitasking", but int the human sense of an activity that a single user might want a computer to perform, like solving a complex equation or modeling a hurricane. While the difference isn't absolute, a mainframe would be more multi-user oriented than a supercomputer.
Typical use cases for supercomputers are in the field of visualization. That's why we get these jokes about future Windows version requiring a supercomputer to boot. So comparison with a supercomputer, rather than a mainframe, is more apt, especially for graphically lush gadgets such as smartphones.
The person who posted this has to be sane, as an insane persone could never come up w/ such a rediculous comment.
what is the app that does that is flawed? See this: http://it.slashdot.org/story/12/09/25/1631236/samsung-smartphones-vulnerable-to-remote-wipe-hack Samsung Smartphones Vulnerable To Remote Wipe Hack