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FORMOBILE: An end-to-end forensic investigation chain for mobile devices

CWA Kick-off Meeting, 02 April 2020, Vienna

Requirements and guidelines for a complete end-to-end mobile forensic investigation chain

Published on 30 January 2020

Requirements and guidelines for a complete end-to-end mobile forensic investigation chain.

For those familiar with the FORMOBILE project, you will know this is the focus of Work Package 3 – the team striving to produce a new standard explicitly dedicated to mobile forensics.

To find out more about the overall scope of this three year EU funded initiative, please read this short article.

This work is, of course, a process and involves many steps. Thus far, the major milestone was the publication of a report detailing all the current standards and best practices used by LEAs when working with mobile phones. (Read more).

The report, prepared by Austrian Standards International, references many different standards and documents, but very few are specific to mobile phones. As the investigation of mobile phones is such a pivotal aspect in most crime and terror cases - there is an obvious gap.

The gap is recognised, and policies to introduce consistent and accepted standards for mobile forensics are underway on national, European and international levels.

Besides, in Europe, there is currently no legal framework for the acquisition, collection, processing, storage and exchange of digital data that may serve as evidence in a court of law among the different countries.

These gaps reinforce the necessity for significant improvements in this domain and exactly what FORMOBILE is working towards changing.

There are many beneficiaries of the new standard, LEAs, national and international forensic laboratories of different levels, organisations working in the area of mobile forensics as well as independent experts will benefit from this CEN Workshop.

The CEN Workshop Agreement covers:

Requirements and Guidelines for a complete end-to-end mobile forensic investigation chain' focusing on the processes, specific for mobile forensics and including the following topics:

Device seizure

Data preservation

Data acquisition

Data examination and analysis

Documentation of all investigation steps

Reporting

Evaluation and sharing of information with other Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs)

In addition to the process-related issues, the above CWA will cover requirements for a new curriculum for the training of LEA officers, security practitioners and criminal prosecution experts to ensure that the evidence from mobile devices is court-approved across national borders.

The final deliverable of this Workshop (CEN/CWA) is expected to be adopted in March 2022. A kick-off meeting is taking place in Vienna in April to initiate the formal process of creating the CWA. The event is open; therefore, any future beneficiaries or parties interested in the topic are welcome to attend; however, registration is mandatory.