Digital Forensics on Screen Locked Android Smart Phone

Objective To study the effective method to acquire or recover the data from screen-locked mobile phones with no password and USB debugging enabled. Methods The booting principles of Android smart phone were analyzed. A method based on Android debug bridge protocol was presented in order to clear the screen lock password. Then the USB debugging was opened and forensics tools could be connected. Result Testing on ZTE n760 intelligent mobile phone, the method of mobile phone forensics was proved to be successful, without losing user data. Conclusion In the recovery mode, by connecting the mobile phone to a computer through the ADB protocol and removing the password file, the USB debug port could be opened and the digital forensics could be performed without losing user data.