The following questions refer to PDAs, smartphones, and cell phones
Are there any forensic tools that can gather data when the phone is locked by a user passcode?
If not, is there any information (or whitepapers) that give techniques to defeating or bypassing these passwords?
I know this can be nightmarish given the numerous manufacturers and models… but are there some devices that have universal bypasses?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
In terms of cell phones, there are a variety of "flashing" tools that can either read, defeat or reset user codes. Nokias, Samsungs, Motorolas and Sony Ericssons tend to be the most well supported there.
You can check out the wide range of tools at
Alternatively for the handsets that are supported XACT will recover some passcodes - in fact on some Nokias and Motorolas; XRY will recover the passcode (but in some cases I can think of you'd have to already have entered the passcode to get the handset to run at all).
The other approach is trying the default codes of that handset - you'd be amazed how often people haven't bothered to change them.
A word to the wise though - best not to try guessing on PDAs, Blackberrys, etc - they have a nasty habit of deleting data when you guess it wrong.
Alex,
Thanks so much for the great information; it's very helpful!