A Forensic Approach for Data Acquisition of Smart Phones to Meet the Challenges of Law Enforcement Perspective

Abstract

As the mobile devices grown popularity in everyday life, they are often vulnerable in security and  privacy. Mobile device such as Cell Phones, Personal Digital Assistance (PDA) and Satellite phones have  become essential tool in our personal and professional lives. These devices serves for user as Target,  Storage and Communication medium by which user can able to perform various tasks such as send and  receive SMS, MMS, Email, multimedia files, storing audio, video, text, image files and also make and  receive calls. When mobile phone involved in criminal activity extraction of this Electronic/Digital evidence  becomes ‘Gold Mine’ of intelligence and evidence about ‘Who knows Who, What has Happened, What is  being discussed and even what may happen in the future and the right use of this extracted evidence  become important in judicial process that significantly helps in case hearing.  This paper studies extraction of digital evidence from, Nokia Lumia 520, Blackberry Curve 8520  and Samsung Galaxy GT-19082 mobile phones through three widely used mobile forensic devices  (Device A, B & C), and it was concluded that no single tool can be exclusively relied upon to collect and  present every item of potential evidence from a smart mobile device.