Third Party Application Forensics on Apple Mobile Devices

Forensics on mobile devices is not new. Law enforcement and academia have been performing forensics on mobile devices for the past several years. Forensics on mobile third party applications is new. There have been third party applications on mobile devices before today, but none that provided the number of applications available in the iTunes app store. Mobile forensic software tools predominantly addresses "typical" mobile telephony data - contact information, SMS, and voicemail messages. These tools overlook analysis of information saved in third-party apps. Many third-party applications installed in Apple mobile devices leave forensically relevant artifacts available for inspection. This includes information about user accounts, timestamps, geolocational references, additional contact information, native files, and various media files. This information can be made readily available to law enforcement through simple and easy-to-use techniques.