The last release of Magnet AXIOM in 2023 is now available! This release adds new and updated artifacts and features that will help you efficiently access and examine a range of evidence from different sources.

In this release, some notable features include:

• DJI Drone Support – Gain insight into the use of DJI drones such as flight logs for both iOS and Android.
• Millisecond Precision – AXIOM now parses and displays events with milliseconds for
  improved accuracy and precision.
• Transcripts of iOS Audio iMessages – AXIOM can recover the transcript of Audio iMessages which otherwise expire after being played.

You can upgrade to the latest version within AXIOM or at the Customer Portal. If you haven’t tried AXIOM yet, request a free trial here.

DJI Drone Support

Drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) have become very popular with an estimated 5 million consumer drones shipped  globally as of 2020 (and this amount is projected to almost double by 2030). And of those drones, DJI is the leading manufacturer with a reported market share of over 75%.

As drones have become more affordable and accessible to a broader audience, there has been a corresponding increase in crime involving drones, with drones being used in smuggling, invasion of privacy, planning burglaries and other criminal activities.

In AXIOM 7.8, we have added new drone artifacts that provide the ability to decrypt DJI flight logs as well as insights into connected devices, users, and media captured. To read more about how you can access and examine DJI artifacts in Magnet AXIOM, check out our blog from Chris Vance: I Spy with a Drone’s Little Eye or click through the brief demo below:

Millisecond Precision

In some investigations, every millisecond counts. When events happen in extremely rapid succession, it can be necessary to have the ability to dive deep into the sequence of events. The addition of millisecond precision in AXIOM 7.8 ensures you can take this micro view of events that have taken place in your cases.

With this addition, AXIOM can now parse nearly all artifacts to 0.001. The results of this high-resolution parsing are reflected in all artifacts where millisecond data is available, such as in Timeline and Connections. Understanding the sequence of events with millisecond precision (and in the correct order) for incidents involving vehicles, for instance, makes it faster and easier for law enforcement forensic examiners to analyze the artifacts, reconstruct the incident, and report on what occurred.

To learn more about this feature, check out our new blog Improve Investigation Accuracy With Higher Timestamp Resolution or check out an interactive demo:

Transcripts of iOS Audio iMessages

The use of audio messages has risen significantly, in a recent poll 62 percent of Americans say they’ve sent a voice message, and around 30 percent communicate this way weekly or daily. One of the methods of sending these audio messages is with Apple’s iMessage which has an estimated to be 1.3 billion users around the world sending an estimated 8.4 billion iMessages each day.

From a forensic perspective, audio messages have been challenging because, by default, audio iMessages expire two minutes after being played by the recipient. Adding to the challenges is that the messages are deleted from both the sender and recipients’ devices, making it very hard to recover any record of the conversation.

With the release of AXIOM 7.8, and the latest update to iMessages in Apple iOS 17, you can now recover a transcript of these messages for review in your case, ensuring that important conversations aren’t missed from mobile data. To read more about some of the forensic changes resulting from the changes introduced in iOS 17 check out our blog, iOS 17 Forensics: Another Year, Another Byte of the Apple.

New and Updated Artifacts

As with every monthly release, AXIOM 7.8 also featured new and updated artifacts to help keep your investigations current with the latest apps and data sources.

New Artifacts 

• Discord Channels and Servers (Android)
• DJI Flight Logs (iOS & Android)
• Spotlight Searches (iOS)

Updated Artifacts

• iMessage/SMS/MMS (iOS)
• Telegram Messages and Users (iOS)

Get Magnet AXIOM 7.8 Today!

We continually improve AXIOM to make it our most comprehensive digital forensic platform. When every second counts, it’s important that we do what we can to streamline the primary workflow of examiners. We’re excited that these AXIOM improvements can help to do exactly this.

If you’re already using AXIOM, download 7.8 at the Customer Portal. To try AXIOM for yourself, request a free trial today!

If your agency needs to perform remote collections, collect from cloud storage services, or Microsoft Office 365, and check out what’s new in AXIOM Cyber here.