A Novel Method for Windows Phone Forensics

Mobile forensics is a branch of cyber forensics which helps in extracting evidence from mobile devices. A variety of software tools are available from different vendors for performing the acquisition and analysis of handheld devices ranging from basic phones to smart phones. From an investigator’s point of view, information like call log, sms, mms, contacts, multimedia and other user related files are the important artifacts that have to be extracted and analyzed from such devices. The commercially available software tools have different capabilities in extracting these data depending on the make and model of the device under investigation. This research paper emphasizes on the forensic analysis of one of the popular smart phone operating systems named Windows Phone. Windows Phone is relatively a new smart phone operating system with the potential to become one of the major smart phone platforms in the near future. This research paper discusses about the feasibility of conducting a logical acquisition on the device and details the artifacts that can be extracted from the device.