Why choose Belkasoft X for digital forensics and cyber incident response?
Belkasoft X is a versatile software tool for digital forensics and cyber incident investigations used by law enforcement, government, and corporate security specialists across the globe. What makes it a comprehensive and reliable choice for DFIR tasks?
- Easy interface
- Support of multiple data sources and image formats
- Extraction of 1500+ artifact types
- Straightforward workflow from acquisition to examination, reporting, and sharing of evidence
- Mobile brute-force and advanced acquisition methods
- Efficient search and filtering options
- Advanced media file analysis
- AI-powered data examination with BelkaGPT
- Forensic data recovery
- Built-in tools for low-level forensic analysis
- Automation features for routine tasks
In this article, we will explore each of these features in detail, fleshing out the powerful capabilities embedded in the product.
Easy interface
Belkasoft X has an intuitive user interface. Thanks to a carefully thought-out and convenient design, you can begin working in it right after the installation, skipping the weeks of paid training that competitor products require for effective operation.
Belkasoft X interface brings extracted artifacts and investigation tasks at your fingertips
The product also includes guided product tours and video tutorials that help get you started with the tool's features or quickly bring new team members up to speed; however, for a deeper understanding of the product functionalities, we recommend Belkasoft training.
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All-in-one tool
Belkasoft X supports computer, mobile, drone, car, and cloud forensics—all in a single product. This approach allows digital forensics specialists to collect and analyze all devices and data sources relevant to an investigation in one case and examine them comprehensively.
Belkasoft X combines multiple modules for comprehensive DFIR investigations
Belkasoft X can parse various data sources:
- Physical and logical drives and drive images
- Memory dumps
- JTAG and chip-off dumps
- Mobile device backups (including iTunes and ADB, as well as Xiaomi MIUI and Huawei HiSuite backups)
- Mobile full file system images
- Virtual machines (such as VMWare, VirtualBox, Microsoft VirtualPC)
- Drone data (including DJI, Parrot, Skydio, Yuneec, and others)
In addition, it supports image formats created in other tools, like Cellebrite UFED, GrayKey, Magnet Forensics, Exterro FTK (Forensic Toolkit), OpenText EnCase, X-Ways, Oxygen Forensics, Elcomsoft, and Berla.
Effortless low-hanging fruit forensics
Belkasoft X detects and analyzes over 1500 artifact types out of the box. Its automatic extraction of the application data, known as "low-hanging digital forensic fruit," is often sufficient to uncover key evidence in most investigations.
With Belkasoft X's extensive artifact inventory, you do not have to know all data formats, file locations, encryption schemas, or signatures for carving files and individual records. The product supports:
- Popular (and lesser-known) messengers used across the globe: WhatsApp, Telegram, WeChat, Signal, Kakao Talk, Kik, Line, Skype, Slack, Snapchat, Viber, and more
- Social networks: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, VK, etc
- Dating apps: Tinder, Badoo, Grindr, etc
- Major browsers: Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera, Onion, Safari, Tor, and others
- Mail apps: Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, and more
- Cloud and backup services: Carbonite, DropBox, Google Drive, and more
- Standard Android and iOS apps: Contacts, Calls, SMS, Calendar, Notes, and others
- Multiple Android system files and iOS system artifacts, including knowledgeC and Biome
- Cryptocurrency wallets and more
Belkasoft X allows you to select the artifact types and particular applications and formats to extract during the analysis
Belkasoft X also extracts a variety of cyber incident response-specific artifacts. They help quickly track malicious files or uncover lateral movement and persistence mechanisms when investigating cyber threats.
The Incident Investigations window is a convenient view for examining incident response artifacts
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All-around support of DFIR tasks
Belkasoft X facilitates every stage of your investigation, from acquisition and analysis to building reports and sharing evidence.
During the acquisition phase, Belkasoft X helps you:
- Copy hard drives
- Create mobile device dumps
- Acquire SIM-card contents
- Capture RAM (volatile memory)
- Download Google Drive and iCloud
- Get cloud-based application data such as Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, and others
When analyzing data sources, the tool searches for artifacts not only in available files. It explores all potential locations, such as:
- Live RAM
- Pagefile and hiberfil.sys
- Nested data sources (virtual machines, smartphone backups, and hibernation files)
- VCS (Volume Shadow Copy) snapshots
- Unallocated and slack space
Belkasoft X supports encrypted file detection and password brute-force, helping you crack both file-based and disk-based encryption.
The product's robust search capabilities and analysis features, such as Connection Graph, Timeline, and hashset analysis, streamline your examination tasks and enable rapid discovery of crucial facts.
Connection Graph helps you visualize communication between individuals involved in a case
The built-in support of YARA and Sigma rules facilitates the search for traces of malware.
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When it comes to documenting your findings, Belkasoft X provides convenient instruments for making organized bookmarks of artifacts and generating reports in various formats, including text, HTML, XML, CSV, PDF, RTF, Excel, Word, EML, KML, ProjectVIC JSON, Semantics21, and more.
The free Evidence Reader that comes with the tool allows you to create a portable copy of your findings and share them with fellow investigators in Belkasoft's user-friendly interface:
Evidence Reader can show all the exported contents of your case in read-only mode–at no charge!
Mobile brute-force and advanced acquisition methods
For cases where device passcodes are unknown, Belkasoft X offers the Mobile Passcode Brute-Force module that assists with unlocking certain models of iOS and Android devices.
Mobile brute-force helps you bypass security restrictions and automatically guess passcodes on specific iOS and Android devices
Belkasoft X's mobile forensics toolkit offers a wide range of acquisition methods for smartphones and tablets. You can start with the standard and safest options and progress to more advanced methods that yield more data.
iOS acquisition options in Belkasoft X allow you to copy logical images with iTunes backup and Apple File Conduit (AFC) service and acquire the full file system copy of Apple mobile devices with such methods as checkm8-based acquisition, agent backup, and Jailbroken device image.
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Android acquisition methods offer various ways to copy device files, including ADB backup, agent-based methods, and MTP or PTP protocols. You can also copy full file systems of rooted devices, acquire application resources with the APK downgrade method, and use advanced chipset-based methods to acquire physical and logical images of Android devices running on Kirin, MediaTek, Spreadtrum, and Qualcomm chips. For applications whose data is protected with encryption, you can use the automated Android screen capturer.
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Efficient search and filtering options
After Belkasoft X extracts artifacts from your data source, you can run case-wide text searches with special operators and regular expressions to track specific keywords in file contents, names, and metadata. Numerous filtering options help you instantly refine search results, artifacts under categories and profiles, or even all case data.
The filtering functionality helps reduce the amount of data to examine
Advanced media file analysis
When it comes to examining media files, manually sorting through vast amounts of audio, photos, and video is rarely a viable option. Besides extracting all media files and their traces from device images, Belkasoft X streamlines media file forensics by providing a toolkit for the automatic recognition of image contents and extraction of video keyframes.
Media detection and categorization streamline picture analysis
AI-powered investigations with BelkaGPT
BelkaGPT takes your investigations to a new AI-powered level, allowing you to save hours of reading through case data. Belkasoft's AI assistant is based on a large language model that processes text data from your case and answers questions regarding the topics of interest. It works entirely offline and does not have demanding hardware requirements. You can use it securely and efficiently on an average DFIR workstation.
BelkaGPT employs smart AI workflow to provide you with information of interest and relevant artifacts
Forensic data recovery
With Belkasoft X's customizable file and artifact carving functions, Volume Shadow Copy analysis, and advanced SQLite forensics features, you can recover the maximum available data from forensic images, whether the data is still in files, deleted, or hidden in unallocated or slack space.
SQLite analysis reveals freelists, write-ahead log, journal files, and SQLite unallocated space that may contain deleted and altered records
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Built-in tools for low-level forensic analysis
While automated extraction is usually enough, some tricky artifacts may require manual search and analysis. For such investigations, Belkasoft X provides a powerful File System Explorer that lets you view all volumes and partitions inside the device image with existing and deleted folders or files, and VCS snapshots.
When you need to dive deeper, Hex viewer enables you to investigate individual bytes, examine file partitions, convert binary values to various data types, create bookmarks, run custom carving, and apply various encodings.
Hex viewer in Belkasoft X provides you with access to the low-level representation of data
PList, Registry, and SQLite viewers allow you to work more thoroughly with particular types of data and find additional insights that the automatic search was unable to discover.
PList viewer displays structured contents of "preference list" files
Automation features
For routine investigation tasks, you can configure smart automated workflows and complete your work even faster with the Belkasoft X command line.
Command line configurator enables you to create a workflow to run Belkasoft X autonomously
Conclusion
Belkasoft X stands out as a versatile and comprehensive tool for digital forensics and cyber incident response. Its all-in-one capabilities streamline the entire investigation process, from acquisition and analysis to final reporting. Advanced features like Mobile Passcode Brute-Force and BelkaGPT offer unique advantages, making Belkasoft X an invaluable asset for digital forensics specialists.
Are you looking for a powerful yet user-friendly and cost-effective solution? Take the next step in your digital forensics journey by exploring Belkasoft X.