ADF How To Videos

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ADF Solutions has created short "how-to" videos which are designed to teach key concepts in short, easy-to-learn formats. If you are new to ADF Software and would like a personal demo of any of our products, please request a demo and we'll be delighted to walk you through our software and discuss how we speed digital forensics investigations and help reduce forensic backlogs. These free videos are created and frequently updated by our digital forensic specialists and trainers that come to us with experience in investigations and law enforcement.

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Featured Videos Mobile Forensics Computer Forensics Digital Forensics Knowledge Base

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How to connect to an iOS device for Screencasting

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How to get started with Bluetooth Capture

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ADF Solutions Evaluation Steps: A Quick Video Walkthrough

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Screen Recording, Screenshots, and Screen Mirroring on Android

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Backing Up and Scanning iOS Devices

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Archiving Phone Backups

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Digital Forensic Screenshots with OCR for Mobile Devices

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How to Create Search Profiles with Mobile Device Investigator

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Create an iOS Forensic Backup with DEI PRO

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How to Create a Forensic Backup of an Android Device with MDI

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Creating a Search Profile in DEI PRO

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How to Start an Android Forensic Scan with MDI

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Screen Recording, Screenshots, and Screen Mirroring on Android

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Introducing Mobile Device Investigator

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How to connect to an iOS device for Screencasting

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Learn to Create an Android Forensic Backup with DEI PRO

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Scan iOS Devices with Mobile Device Investigator

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Mobile Preview: Fast Mobile Phone Forensic Triage

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Dropbox Forensics for iOS Cloud Storage Capture

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Regular Expressions that Speed Digital Investigations

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Best Mobile Device Investigator Settings for Evidence Collection

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Using Digital Forensic Screen Capture on Mobile Devices

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How to get started with Bluetooth Capture

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Creating a Search Profile in DEI PRO

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Live Mac Forensics: Round Out Your On-Scene Triage

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Collect RAM on a Live Computer

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Find Anti-Forensic and Dark Web Traces with ADF Triage Software

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macOS Forensics: Live Scan Macs with T2 or M1 chips

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The Power of ADF Computer Triage

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How-To Image on a Boot and Live Scan

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How to Boot Scan a Mac with APFS and FileVault 2

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How to Install Digital Evidence Investigator and DEI PRO Offline

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Create an iOS Forensic Backup with DEI PRO

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Using Stealth Mode: Counterterrorism Operations

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Digital Forensic Boot Scan a Mac with APFS

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Collect Web Credentials: Quick Saved Credentials Search Profile

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Fighting In-House Backlog with Triage

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Collecting Files by Targeted Folders to Speed a Forensic Investigation

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How to Install Digital Evidence Investigator and DEI PRO Online

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Learn Computer Forensics: Collect Saved Web Credentials in the Field

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Learn to Create an Android Forensic Backup with DEI PRO

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How to Scan a non OS Drive or Partition

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Regular Expressions that Speed Digital Investigations

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Transferring Data With the ADF Migration Tool

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Obtaining Your ADF Evaluation License

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ICAC Investigations with ADF Tools

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How to Have a Digital Forensic Triage Process that Works Field to Lab

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Remove an iTunes Password set in ADF Digital Forensics Tools

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Entity Extraction, Keywords and Classification of Images and Videos (UPDATED JULY 2022)

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Creating a Collection Key without Search Profiles

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Explaining the Settings Page

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How ADF Tools Identify Files

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How to Scan Multiple Devices

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Import and Export Digital Forensic Search Profiles

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Investigate: Files Referenced by Artifact Records

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How to Prepare Multiple Evidence Collection Keys (UPDATED August 2022)

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How to Prepare a Digital Evidence Collection Key (CKY) (UPDATED August 2022)

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How to Prepare a Sanitized CSAM Report (UPDATED August 2022)

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Define Files to Collect Digital Evidence (Updated in 2022)

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Using PhotoDNA in Digital Forensics Investigations (Updated in 2022)

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Archiving with the Standalone Viewer

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How to Hide Default Search Profiles in ADF Digital Forensic Software

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Prepare Evidence Collection Keys for Investigation (Updated in 2022)

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The post How to Video Page – 2026 appeared first on ADF Solutions.

The proliferation of digital communication tools has become a defining feature of modern education, presenting opportunities and challenges for School Resource Officers (SROs) tasked with maintaining campus safety.

• Mobile Devices:

1. The widespread availability of smartphones has made digital communication an integral part of student life.
2. Instant messaging, social media platforms, and various communication apps are at the forefront of daily interactions and are essential to collect when conducting Mobile Forensics.

• Computer Devices:

1. Many students use school-issued computer devices such as Chromebooks to complete class assignments.
2. Evidence such as photos, calls, browser history, and other artifacts can be obtained from Windows, Linux, Mac, and Chrome OS devices on campus.

• Social Media:

1. Social media platforms serve as virtual hubs for student interactions, shaping social dynamics within and beyond the school community.
2. Challenges arise as SROs navigate the complexities of monitoring social media for potential threats, bullying incidents, or signs of unrest.

• Cyberbullying and Online Threats:

1. The digital realm has become a breeding ground for cyberbullying and online threats, requiring SROs to be vigilant in identifying and addressing these issues.
2. Monitoring and mitigating the impact of online conflicts on campus dynamics is crucial to ensuring student safety.

As SROs navigate the proliferation of digital communication among students, they play a pivotal role in promoting a safe and secure environment. Addressing the challenges posed by the digital landscape requires a nuanced understanding of technology, proactive strategies, and a commitment to balancing the benefits of connectivity with the imperatives of student safety.

School Resource Officers can adapt to these challenges with digital forensic software such as Digital Evidence Investigator PRO (DEI PRO), employing innovative approaches to maintain a secure educational ecosystem. This powerful software provides SROs the tools to effectively collect and analyze digital evidence from mobile and computer devices, helping them stay one step ahead in their investigations.

DEI PRO offers a comprehensive solution for SROs to navigate the complexities of the digital age. With this software, SROs can easily extract data from smartphones, including instant messaging apps, social media platforms, and other communication apps that students use daily. This allows them to gather crucial evidence and gain insights into potential threats or disruptive activities within the school community.

Not only does DEI PRO support mobile devices, but it also extends its capabilities to computer devices commonly used by students, such as Chromebooks. SROs can extract many digital artifacts from these devices, including photos, call logs, browser history, etc. This comprehensive approach ensures no relevant evidence is undiscovered, enabling SROs to conduct thorough investigations and maintain a safe and secure learning environment.

The role of School Resource Officers is becoming increasingly complex in the digital age. However, with digital forensic software like DEI PRO, SROs can adapt to these challenges and maintain a secure educational ecosystem. By utilizing innovative approaches and staying updated on the latest technological advancements, SROs can effectively collect evidence, monitor social media, and address cyberbullying and online threats. Through their dedication and commitment to student safety, SROs play a pivotal role in creating a safe and nurturing environment for students to thrive.

Learn How School Resource Officers Can Use Mobile Forensics

Read more on the topic of School Resource Officers and Digital Evidence 

• Safeguarding Kids Online: Meet Clayton Cranford Cyber Safety Cop

The post How School Resource Officers Meet Campus Safety Challenges appeared first on ADF Solutions.

Mobile Device Investigator (MDI), the analysis section of Mobile Device Investigator, is an invaluable asset for digital forensics professionals. Its functionalities for data examination, organization, and reporting simplify complex investigations and help investigators make sense of vast amounts of information efficiently. In this blog post, we will guide you through reviewing evidence from a mobile device.

Step 1: Connect your Device 

To initiate review evidence, start by connecting the mobile device you wish to analyze to your computer. MDI is versatile and supports a wide range of devices, such as smartphones and tablets, that run on systems like iOS and Android. Once your device is connected, MDI will automatically detect and establish a connection.

Step 2: Select Review Scan Results

Individual records can be accessed from the summary page, and media galleries, timelines, complete filed and folder listings, and reporting are accessible from the navigation toolbar. Results are easily sorted, filtered, tagged, commented, and classified using the function toolbar. Hash and keyword matching are easily identified if brought to the top of each table for simple identification.

Step 3: Export your Report

Under the Report tab, you can create your customized report by selecting the content you wish to include. Reports are generated in HTML, PDF, CSV, and VICS data, and ADF’s own standalone viewer allows others to review, analyze, and report without a license. 

Mobile Device Investigator (MDI) analysis section of Mobile Device Investigator is a significant leap forward in mobile device forensics. By centralizing access to critical data and offering a range of powerful tools, investigators can streamline their workflow and focus on the most pertinent information. The intuitive interface ensures that even users with varying levels of expertise can navigate and benefit from the tool effectively.

Watch How to Review Mobile Evidence

The post How to Review Mobile Forensics Evidence appeared first on ADF Solutions.

“We are thrilled to release this new forensic software version,” said Raphael Bousquet, CTO, of ADF Solutions. “We now fully support extracting data and taking screenshots from iPhone 14 Pro devices and all devices running iOS16. We have also simplified the discovery of the remote Mac agents.”

The highlights of this new release for the investigative and digital forensic community include: 

• Scan and acquire iOS 16 devices and the latest Apple mobile devices
• Screenshot evidence with access to Developer Mode on iOS 16 devices
• Scan & Image MacOS computers with remote Mac OS agents automatically: Easily discover the remote agent without having to use its IP address: 
• Enterprise Deployment Options: the ability to borrow license tokens for Collection Keys to extend digital forensic licenses quickly and widely across a corporate or agency private network

What This Solves

Investigators and examiners can better streamline their forensic investigations with mobile devices by capturing screenshots on iOS 16 devices. The ability to take a screenshot on an iPhone is not necessarily new functionality. However, up until now, law enforcement and forensic examiners have been limited in their ability to achieve iOS 16 screenshots with Apple devices. This limitation has resulted in slowed investigations. The addition of this feature is part of ADF’s ongoing commitment to designing the most efficient digital forensic triage and media exploitation tools for law enforcement and security professionals.

“Our latest release contains iOS 16 screenshot capabilities that speed up forensic investigations for forensic examiners in the lab and forensic investigators on-scene. With this release, we significantly enhanced our data collection with screenshots for mobile forensics cases. This means that examiners have the power to collect data from Apple devices faster, more efficiently, and with a better understanding of what information is important, critical or inconsequential for their investigation.” – Brittany Roberts, Director of Marketing.

Financials

Starting at $2,999 for ADF’s mobile forensic kit, and $5,099 for ADF’s all-in-one forensic kit (computer and mobile), forensic investigators and examiners can subscribe for one year or three years with support and maintenance of ADF forensic software. 

The software is now available for purchase and qualified professionals can request a free trial of ADF forensic software at https://www.adfsolutions.com/free-trial. 

Talk to an ADF Expert

The post ADF Solutions: iOS 16 Screenshot Capabilities for First Responders appeared first on ADF Solutions.

The U.K. has a long history of forensic science, dating back to the early 19th century when the first formal police force was established. Since then, the U.K. has been at the forefront of developments in the field [1] However, despite this history, the U.K. is currently facing a serious shortage of forensic processing capacity, leading to a backlog of work.

The causes of this backlog are numerous and complex but can be broadly divided into two main categories: a lack of resources and an increase in demand. In terms of resources, there has been a significant reduction in government funding for forensic science over recent years, leading to a decline in the number of laboratories and staff. This has been exacerbated by an increase in the complexity of cases, which require more time and resources to process.

The increase in demand which has left many pending cases has been driven by a number of factors.

The first is the overall increase in crime levels, which has put pressure on all parts of the criminal justice system, including forensic science and solving criminal investigations.

The second is the change in the nature of the crime, with a shift towards more serious offences such as sexual assault and murder. These cases often require more complex and time-consuming forensics, which can further strain resources.

The third factor is the change in police investigative methods, which now place greater reliance on forensic evidence. This is particularly true of cases where there are no eyewitnesses, making digital forensic analysis vital in securing a conviction.

The final factor is the change in public expectations, which have risen in recent years. The high-profile cases of the last few years, such as the murder of Stephen Lawrence, have shown that there is a demand for justice and for police to use every available tool to secure a conviction.

The U.K. government has acknowledged the problem of forensic backlogs and has taken steps to address it. In 2016, the Home Office released a Forensic Science Strategy, which set out a plan to improve the capacity and capability of the UK’s forensic science sector. This includes investing in new laboratories and recruiting new staff [2]

The United Kingdom’s forensic science sector across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland is facing significant challenges, but there are steps being taken to address them. By investing in new laboratories, new digital forensic technology, and staff, and by sharing best practices and resources, the U.K. can reduce the backlog of cases and ensure that vital digital evidence is processed in a timely manner through computer forensics and mobile forensics.

Learn more about Reducing Forensic Backlog

The post The Current State of Affairs of the UK’s Forensic Backlog appeared first on ADF Solutions.

DEI PRO Field Tablet Specifications 

ADF offers the DEI PRO Field Tablet built on the Dell Lattitude 7220 Rugged Extreme Tablet – with a 12” screen and front-facing camera.

REAR

On the backside of the tablet is a rear-mounted camera and flash, attached stylus with storage slot. The tablet shows is appropriately bright so no one can lose it, and ships with a 2 Cell, ExpressCharge, Lithium Ion Battery.

FRONT

On the front of the DEI PRO Field Tablet is a backlit screen rotation button as well as buttons to control brightness, volume as well as three additional programmable buttons for keystrokes or macros – such as Open DEI / or turning writeblocking on or off.

SIDE PANEL

On the hidden side panel is the audio jack, USB3, USBC Micro HDMI, and power input

SETTINGS / BLOCKER

Along with all this it comes bitlocker protected (again whos going to lose it with the bright color) Pause – If we go to our easy to access display settings we can see how easy it is to scale giving you better viewing capabilities, here we scaled to 175% and look how nice that is to view, back to 100% then up to 125% and still nice viewing area.  And the tablet is not locked to DEI all access is yours, think of the boot information, hot keys, and computer specs you can find now.right at the tip of your fingers. The keyboard is easy to access from the task bar and  also has auto open if in a text area.

TAKING SCREENSHOTS 

Let’s Open DEI on the Dell tablet, again touch capable, and  plenty of screen real estate for you. We have already gone ahead and added an iPhone, with an encrypted backup setting, an iOS with encrypted backups to get more data – and let’s see how easy it is to use the screenshot capability.

With an optional kickstand or hand strap you can easily create a few screenshots, no dropping the tablet and working in an often limited space. If you have not seen this feature, you can screenshot with DEI PRO and process with OCR.

First we create a few screenshots and can create separate categories, such as home screens, Evernote, specific apps, Kik messenger, whatever you are screenshotting. You can see here you only need to manipulate the screen to the location you want to screenshot, no triggers on the phone itself. We then process with Optical Character Recognition and everything is processed and available in your scan results. You’ll have nice screen previews and searchable textual content from the screenshots.

TEXT CONTENT / OCR / PREVIEW

Now if we navigate to the Evernote category we can see the Evernote textual content and will focus in on the text “ a lot of security doors” and search for the word security. Again easy to use keyboard and the search found 3 hits on security for Security cameras, security guards, and security doors.

SCAN RESULTS / MESSAGING

As we look into the messaging capture results we can see just how responsive DEI PRO is with the touch screen and using all the typical buttons, boxes, and selection points, filtering, sorting, removing filters, scrolling. All with ease, and you can see as we navigate around that there are no miss-hits or what I like to refer to – for myself –  as fat fingering. All selections have been accurate with the Dell Latitude Tablet and the touch screen feature. 

NON-OS USB

So I mentioned earlier about having the Forensic Lab in your hand, and as we show a USB device that needs to be scanned, if you are on-scene you could attach it through a write blocker or like I mentioned earlier turn on/off write blocking with the program keys.

Once it’s write blocked and attached use the normal Digital Evidence Investigator function to select the drive, select a profile for non OS scanning and you are scanning your target device on-scene while others are using Collection Keys for the computers on scene. While we are demonstrating use with the tablet keyboard, an external keyboard could be connected and used in these situations as well.

You can monitor the scan as it continues and when  the scan has finished the results can be immediately reviewed and/or the USB device imaged if necessary. also this is the time you can review, tag, sort, filter, and use your results for interview purposes and making decisions on scene. You always have enough screen real estate and the ability to zoom built into the DEI PRO Field Tablet. 

CLASSIFIER / PREVIEW – UNDOCK

One of the nice things about having the forensic lab in your hands is also having the ability to do just a little more examination of the results on scene. As we cant preview video on a suspect computer, having the tablet allows you to preview with the proper codecs installed, you still get the 50 frames, but now if the actual content and audio are important, the lab is with you and you can preview the entire video in full. As you are scrolling through videos, if your classifier has finished running post-scan, you can choose to use the features there as well, all on scene. Of course, start, stop, scrub and pause are all available. 

The benefits of bringing the DEI PRO Field Tablet On-Scene combines the benefits of the best mobile phone forensic software with ADF’s powerful computer forensic software: 

• Portable, Lightweight and Easy-to-Use
• Built for DEI PRO (mobile & computer forensics)
• Push button functionality
• Built for the extreme conditions of law enforcement
• Bright and Bitlockered
• Full functionality on-scene, no waiting to go back to the lab
• If the situation changes, you are ready

Learn More About the DEI PRO Field Tablet

Related Content: 

• Creating an Android Forensic Backup with DEI PRO
• Backing up and Scanning an iOS Device
• Scan an iOS Device with Mobile Device Investigator
• Creating a digital forensic Search Profile in DEI PRO

The post Meet the Best Field Forensic Tool: DEI PRO Field Tablet appeared first on ADF Solutions.