IntaForensics are very happy to announce to our clients that our research and development has enabled us to recover substantial amounts of additional data from Windows Phone 8 handsets than the mainstream commercial forensics tools support. Our mobile phone technical team have pioneered the new technique on a number of recent criminal investigations.

Previously, digital forensic examiners relied solely on standard industry tools such as XRY from Microsystemation and UFED Touch Ultimate from Cellebrite. These tools will only extract media files and contacts from these handsets.

IntaForensics development team mobile phone leader Alex Golding comments that “Our new techniques allows us to recover live and deleted contacts, Calls, SMS Messages, e-Mails, internet history in addition to the information from third party application data such as WhatsApp, Skype, SnapChat. Our applied research will enable us to pioneer more techniques for Windows and other mobile phone operating systems.”

The technique allows for a full physical extraction to be taken from Windows Phone 8 handsets such as the Nokia Lumia (e.g. Nokia Lumia 520 or Lumia 620). It is then possible to decode live and deleted data from this physical image – it also allows for the PIN number to be bypassed. This is often required in criminal investigations where suspects are  typically not prepared to provide their PIN number.

This breakthrough has gained increasing importance, as Windows Phone 8 is a growing operating system – according to Forbes this system now has 11.4% market share and is growing. IntaForensics has certainly experienced an increase in the number of Windows Phone 8 handsets being submitted for analysis.