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UK crime fighters grapple with iPhone wipe threat
PC-mobile shift causing headaches for forensics chief

By Nick Heath

Published: Tuesday 02 September 2008

Criminals can remotely destroy incriminating evidence by exploiting security features on the Apple iPhone, a leading digital forensics expert has warned.

The head of the Serious Fraud Office digital forensics unit Keith Foggon cautioned that the ability to remotely wipe the iPhone and other smart phones used by enterprises could be exploited by lawbreakers.

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Foggon said: "The 3G iPhone is brand new, there are not many tools for dealing with it and it can be remotely wiped. It's a bit like the BlackBerrys where users can carry out remote deletion."

He added the unit took precautions to guard against the feature being exploited. "Because we isolate the devices immediately, and never reconnect them to their network, the remote wiping capability does not present us with much of a problem," he noted.

The 21-strong unit, which sniffs out incriminating evidence from crime scenes, uses a number of high-tech tools to get the sensitive data the police needs to build a case. Advanced forensics tools such as the Logicube CellDEK allow the forensics organisation to pull data from more than 1,100 of the most popular mobile phones and PDAs, while its team carry suitcases containing handset connectors of every shape and size to help collect data from the devices.

However, Foggon warned that the shift away from PCs towards mobile devices is posing an increasing headache for the digital forensics teams.

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