BlackBerry Forensics: An Agent Based Approach for Database Acquisition

Abstract

Digital forensics is a field of prime concern, as the cyber crimes are becoming dominant in the modern world. Gadgets like mobile phones and smart phones are very commonplace in today’s society with powerful features. Criminals started using handheld devices for committing crimes as it is easy to handle and always portable. BlackBerry is a widely used smart phone because of its unique features. As the usage is very high, the evidentiary value of this device assumes greater importance in the litigation process. The very common methodology applied in BlackBerry forensics is the IPD file generation using Blackberry Desktop Manager. The methodology explained in this paper uses a different approach. Here forensic image of the BlackBerry handheld is generated using a software agent, which is injected on the device before acquisition. The tool also analyzes the forensic image and shows phone contents in different file viewers.