Evaluating Digital Forensic Options for the Apple iPad

Abstract : The iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad from Apple are among the most popular mobile computing platforms in use today. These devices are of forensic interest because of their high adoption rate and potential for containing digital evidence. The uniformity in their design and underlying operating system (iOS) also allows forensic tools and methods to be shared across product types. This paper analyzes the tools and methods available for conducting forensic examinations of the Apple iPad. These include commercial software products, updated methodologies based on existing jailbreaking processes and the analysis of the device backup contents provided by iTunes. While many of the available commercial tools offer promise, the results of our analysis indicate that most comprehensive examination of the iPad requires jailbreaking to perform forensic duplication and manual analysis of its media content.