By Ellen Messmer

Trying to get computer forensics data out of mobile smartphones and tablets in order to conduct investigations is hard — often much harder than on PCs, laptops or Macs — and experts say that forensics tools need to improve.

"The investigation tools for mobile are not at the same level of granularity you can get on tools for desktops," says David Nardoni, director of mobile-device investigations at consultancy Pricewaterhousecooper. Other experts agree, and also note that the BYOD trend only adds to the problem.

Forensics experts say they want to do both "physical" and "logical" acquisition of data. This means grabbing operating system files, device memory and other technical information, plus personal email or documents or phone data. They typically need a PIN code to access the device. But the state of the art in computer forensics tools and the proliferation of mobile devices all makes this hard. And unlike with Windows-based computers, for example, you can't just take out the hard drive, they note.

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Source: Network World