Teaching Mobile Forensics
The Leahy Center for Digital Investigation recently participated in Champlain College’s Reaching Out On Technology and Science (ROOTS) event. The event, formally known as Kids in Technology and Science, is to get young students from local schools interested in learning about science and technology. And the LCDI did its part by teaching mobile forensics to around 40 students during the event.
The students were given a crash course on the basics of mobile forensics, such as what it is, what can be found on a mobile device and a brief overview of Cellebrite. They were also taught some of the key differences between the different types of images. After this part of the class, the students were paired up and each group was given an iPad to generate data on, they took pictures, wrote notes, sent iMessages and browsed the internet. They also kept a data generation log, logging every website, picture and message. Now that the data was generated it was time for the analysis. We had the groups come up one at a time and had them make a logical image of the iPad using our Cellebrite UFED Touch. They then took the image to the LCDI’s laptop that had been set up with the Cellebrite Physical Analyzer software and explored the image they had just made. Being able to have this hands-on experience and seeing what could be easily discovered on a device excited and surprised the students, hopefully sparking their interest for digital forensics.