July 13th, 2009 by kgaffaneyRecovering deleted text messages on the iPhone… it isn’t easy, but it is possible. Once a SMS or text message is deleted it remains stored, although hidden, on the iPhone for a period of time. The storage of the deleted text message is not permanent because it is eventually overwritten with other data. The greater amount of use between deletion and recovery of the text message decreases the chances of recovering the text message.
There are a number of iPhone data extraction devices and techniques available but most of those don’t recover deleted text messages. See iPhone Forensics – White Paper. The different and emerging versions of the iPhone make the recovering of deleted text messages or SMS messages all that much more difficult. Different code and software is needed when working on different versions.
The are two main ways the deleted text message may be recovered one is by extracting the deleted message itself. A more time consuming method is to review all screen shots saved by the phone and then recovered using an extraction technique. This is time consuming because the information is in the form of an image and cannot be searched and must be manually examined.
Unless you know you are using the correct procedure based on iPhone model and version you could mistakenly permanently remove the information you are attempting to recover. Therefore it is important to have someone with experience in this area before attempting to extract the deleted text messages. viaFORENSICS has this kind of experience.
