Hello all I am a new member. I am a detective assigned to my agency's Computer and Cyber Crimes Unit. I'm fairly new to the realm of Mobile Phone forensics and such with a little under a year experience.
Anyway, while conducting the prep work on a phone for exam I noticed what appears to be slight burn marks or charring on the metal contact portion. It almost resembles a shorted circuit.
I've tried conducting a SIM Card extraction using Cellebrite (Touch) and received several connection errors which is making me suspicious.
What I'm trying to gather is
!.) is this a normal occurrence in a SIM cards.
2) what are some of the causes ( over charging, extreme external climate, …)
3.) Most importantly any one's personal experience with such.
I've tried searching the forum but most of what I found dealt with extremely broken SIM cards ie; smashed or cut.
Thanks for any input.
BX
Just seen your post but in a hurry right now as I am off out on work. I have sent a PM to you.
Can you put up a small pic of the charring? blur the ICCID
1.) is this a normal occurrence in a SIM cards.
2) what are some of the causes ( over charging, extreme external climate, …)
3.) Most importantly any one's personal experience with such.
In my experience it is not a normal occurrence. Unless there is a short in the phone (which is not unheard of but are quite rare) the SIM should work without incident. Causes would not be environmental as such, if there was trauma to the phone which caused a short that could explain it. Overcharging I have found to be a myth. The other option would be purposeful tampering, also not unheard of. The most ingenious one I saw was a guy used two pieces of a paper clip, a 9v battery, and some tape to cause the short. That one didn't leave much of a mark, but this was in a controlled environment.