What's new in Belkasoft X v.2.8

Belkasoft Evidence Center X (Belkasoft X) is Belkasoft's flagship product for digital forensics, cyber incident response, and eDiscovery.

Belkasoft X v.2.8 introduces a range of powerful new features and improvements:

• New BelkaGPT Hub add-on, which helps you speed up case processing by distributing AI-related calculations across computers in your local network—working totally offline!
• Massive BelkaGPT improvements with multi-modal support and a refined model for higher answer accuracy
• Audio forensics, including speech recognition and search
• Decryption updates, including improved MTK decryption and hashcat integration
• Visual Query Builder integrated into the SQLite Viewer, along with various SQL execution improvements

Upgrading from previous versions of Belkasoft X to v.2.8 is free for all customers with an active Software Maintenance and Support (SMS) contract. Customers with expired or expiring SMS contracts can review and renew them through the Customer Portal.

Affordable training with optional certification is also available, including on-demand options.

[NEW]: On-demand training exclusively for customers: Advanced SQLite Queries with Belkasoft X.

New Feature Details

BelkaGPT Hub

BelkaGPT Hub is an exciting enhancement on top of our popular BelkaGPT technology. Running BelkaGPT locally is a great feature because it meets offline analysis requirements. However, effective use of modern AI demands powerful hardware, which is not always available on every workstation in a DFIR lab.

This challenge is addressed by the new module, which allows delegating intensive computations to a local server. The entire workflow remains completely offline, but thanks to this distributed setup, multiple users can accelerate their work by leveraging the horsepower of a server available within the local network.

Here are just a few benefits of the new functionality:

• Faster Case Processing: A single GPU with 24GB of VRAM can process data up to 60 times faster than a CPU—and that is just the beginning
• Reduced Hardware Costs: You do not need GPUs on every forensic workstation. One shared machine with a GPU can support the whole team
• Scalable Performance: Need even more speed? BelkaGPT Hub lets you distribute workloads across multiple GPU-equipped machines, boosting performance for large or time-sensitive cases
• Team-Friendly Setup: Multiple investigators can share the same high-performance hardware for processing. It is a simple, scalable way to bring AI to your entire DFIR team
• Leverage Existing Resources: Already have a GPU server for tasks like password brute-forcing? BelkaGPT Hub lets you reuse that power for AI case processing—no extra investment needed

BelkaGPT Hub is a paid module. Interested in adding it to your lab? Contact us today at sales@belkasoft.com! The first 100 (one hundred) customers will receive completely free assistance with setting up and optimizing BelkaGPT Hub!

BelkaGPT Enhancements

The core BelkaGPT AI technology itself continues to evolve at a high pace. In this new release, numerous upgrades have been implemented:

• The accuracy of answers has been dramatically improved thanks to multiple technical enhancements, including an updated underlying language model, fine-tuning of the model and engine for digital forensics specifics, improved system prompts, and optimization of various options and parameters
• BelkaGPT can now utilize GPU acceleration: CUDA and Vulkan can now be used to speed up processing. Using a GPU instead of a CPU can boost performance by up to 60 times, as demonstrated in our laboratory tests
• BelkaGPT now supports distributed analysis through the ability to connect to a BelkaGPT Hub
• The technology has become multi-modal: it now supports picture analysis, including generating descriptions, indexing images, and searching by keywords that match those descriptions; as well as audio analysis
• Text can now be extracted from audio files and processed by BelkaGPT (see more details below under Audio Forensics)
• Device IMEI numbers and disk properties are now indexed by BelkaGPT and can be included in responses to relevant questions

User Interface Updates

• The BelkaGPT tab can now display more than three related artifacts at once. This feature, frequently requested by early adopters, allows you to retrieve additional relevant artifacts on top of default three items
• A spellchecker has been added for user input, making it easy to spot typos in your questions. While typos usually do not prevent BelkaGPT from providing correct answers, using correct spelling helps ensure accurate results

Additionally, the BelkaGPT resources installer and diagnostic tools have been improved. Please make sure to download the latest version of the resources from your Customer Portal, as they are not included in the main product installer to reduce its size.

Audio Forensics

The product now includes AI-based speech recognition for audio files. This new feature can handle a wide range of languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese, and many more.

Once extracted, all text is indexed by the regular search engine as well as by BelkaGPT, making it searchable through both traditional keyword lookup and natural language queries.

Decryption

The new version brings important updates to Belkasoft’s decryption capabilities:

• Improved MTK (MediaTek) Decryption: Enhancements allow for more reliable acquisition and decryption of data from devices powered by MTK chipsets. The new release also extends the range of supported Samsung devices
• Hashcat Integration: Users can now benefit from integration with hashcat, the popular password recovery tool, to accelerate brute-force attacks on encrypted data
• iOS Proton Mail: A new option is available to input a decryption key for Proton Mail data stored on iOS devices, helping investigators access this otherwise protected content more easily. These improvements further expand the range of devices and data types that Belkasoft X can process, providing more evidence sources for your cases

Visual SQL Query Builder

The new visual SQL Query Builder, built into the SQLite Viewer, makes working with databases easier and more intuitive—even for users who are not familiar with SQL syntax. Create complex SQL queries step by step using a user-friendly interface—without writing SQL code manually. This enhancement helps both beginners and advanced users analyze SQLite data more efficiently and accurately.

Please also take a look at our newly released Advanced SQL Queries on-demand training. This course highlights enhancements in version 2.8, including the Query Builder, and is available exclusively to paid customers.

Artifacts

Existing mobile artifacts have been updated, new ones have been added:

iOS:

• Facebook Messenger (updated)
• Gmail (updated)
• Instagram (updated)
• Maps v16.5.1 (updated)
• SMS (updated)
• Telegram v11.7.2 (updated)
• TikTok (updated)

Android:

• Evernote v10.126 (updated)
• Firefox v134.0.2 (updated)
• Google Maps (updated)
• Google Workspace (updated)
• Instagram (updated)
• Signal (updated)
• Telegram v11.9.0 (updated)
• TikTok (updated)
• Viber v24.7.0 (updated)
• WeChat v8.0.56 (updated)
• X (ex-Twitter) (updated)
• Xabber v2.6.6 (updated)

Windows:

• Event Logs: Defender Logs analysis (new)
• MSG Mails (updated)
• RTF Documents (updated: more text extracted from malformed files)
• Timeline (updated)
• Video (updated: more metadata supported)

Other Improvements

• Export of pictures to ProjectVIC improved to ensure compatibility with third-party tools
• Geolocation tracks updated with picture and video attachments