2019: A Year in Review
2019 was a big year for us here at Magnet Forensics. Between huge updates to Magnet AXIOM, other exciting new product releases, our first multi-day Magnet User Summit, and partnerships with Grayshift and Child Rescue Coalition, we’ve been excited to bring great solutions to our customers and to the community at large. With the year winding down, we thought we’d take a moment to look back on everything we were proud to accomplish in 2019.
Read more below and check out our other 2019 review posts where our Forensics Experts give their end-of-year highlights and where we outline the development of our Mac support within Magnet AXIOM.
Magnet Forensics Wins Two Forensic 4:cast Awards
We were absolutely honored to be recognized by voters around the world in this year’s Forensic 4:cast Awards! This year, there was a bit of an overhaul to the categories to help reflect the DFIR community as a whole, and we were able to bring home the coveted DFIR Team of the Year and DFIR Commercial Tool of the Year awards!
Once again, thank you to every single person who submitted their nomination and vote — we’re always working to help you in your role and we hope we can count on your support again next year!
Announcing Our Partnership with Grayshift
In February, we were proud to announce that we had entered into an exclusive global technology and distribution partnership with Grayshift, allowing customers in law enforcement to perform the most comprehensive investigations on iOS devices possible today. The partnership meant that law enforcement agencies around the world could not only purchase GrayKey directly from Magnet Forensics, but get an exclusive integration between GrayKey and Magnet AXIOM.
On top of that, we’ve had a great time hosting roadshows and presenting at industry conferences together and can’t wait to keep it going in 2020!
Bringing Mac Support to Magnet AXIOM
In addition to our world-class Windows support, 2019 saw Mac support come to Magnet AXIOM — making it even more comprehensive for computer forensics than ever before! Throughout the year, we’ve continued to build on that support, which includes support for both HFS+ and APFS as well as decryption of FileVault 2 encrypted drives, volumes, and partitions — along with macOS artifacts like FSEvents and Bash History.
Read more about our Mac support in this dedicated end-of-year round-up.
Continuing Our Best-in-Class Forensic Analysis Capabilities in Magnet AXIOM
We’ve continued to expand features within AXIOM proving it is the complete digital investigation platform, that will help you efficiently surface the relevant data of your case, maximizing your time and allowing for more thorough end of case reporting. Best of all, these features work across all evidence sources, be it computer, mobile, cloud or memory!
Introducing Magnet AXIOM Cyber in Beta
In October, we were excited to share a new solution, purpose-built for organizations needing to perform remote acquisitions and collect & analyze evidence from computers, cloud services, and mobile devices: Magnet AXIOM Cyber. AXIOM Cyber was available as part of a beta program, and the response was overwhelming! Thanks to everyone who participated, we’ll be bringing a product shaped by your feedback to you soon. Check back for updates.
Clearing the Way with Magnet OUTRIDER
An easy way for officers and investigators to check devices for digital contraband, Magnet OUTRIDER is an intuitive preview tool that quickly scans smartphones and computers to determine if there is illicit material present and to develop a risk profile of the target user.
We were also proud to recently announce that we partnered with Child Rescue Coalition (CRC) to bring their Neula technology to OUTRIDER. Neula identifies fragmented pieces and fast detection of illegal content — with block hashing technology as a core component — and has been trained on known CSAM material.
For a limited time, Magnet OUTRIDER is available as an extended free trial. Visit www.magnetoutrider.com to take part! Read more in the blog here.
Efforts to Improve Officer Wellness
The effects of chronic exposure to CSAM or IIOC (illicit images of children) can be immense for those who are performing ICAC investigations. With the release of Magnet AXIOM 3.4, we brought in a host of features designed to reduce overexposure to CSAM with the goal to promote improve officer wellness. Learn more about how we’re helping officers in these investigations here.
Monthly Magnet AXIOM Updates
Every month, we’re bringing new and important features to Magnet AXIOM in an effort to help examiners find more evidence that matters. Here’s a quick summary of some of the features we’ve introduced this year (click on the release to learn more):
AXIOM 3.0 – Support for Macs and new cloud sources, a powerful and intuitive new Timeline view, media categorization enhancements, DAF & Magnet.AI improvements, and more.
AXIOM 3.1 – GrayKey integration, a new and improved SQLite viewer, and support for 12 Chromium-based browsers on Android.
AXIOM 3.2 – Instagram warrant returns, the ability to search recently deleted files that are stored in Free Queue on Mac computers, and more.
AXIOM 3.3 – Snapchat warrant returns, SIM card imaging and processing, LG lock bypass support.
AXIOM 3.4 – Officer wellness features, More Mac support, Snapchat, MTK backup acquisition and processing.
AXIOM 3.5 – Apple warrant returns, UX & Quality of Life improvements.
AXIOM 3.6 – Advanced filters, Instagram public data, Apple updates (including iOS 13 & macOS 10.15 [Catalina]), Xiaomi & Huawei backup support.
AXIOM 3.7 – Google warrant returns, KTX files, AFF4 physical images from MacQuisition, macOS extended attributes, PhotoDNA updates.
AXIOM 3.8 – AirDrop artifacts, full logical acquisition of iOS devices jailbroken using checkra1n, new Slack updates.
New Training Courses Go In-Depth on Internet & Cloud Investigations, GrayKey, and macOS Investigations
Over the course of 2019, we were excited to introduce three new training courses to our catalog:
- MAGaK (Magnet AXIOM & GrayKey) Advanced iOS Examinations (AX301)
- Magnet AXIOM internet and Cloud Investigations (AX320)
- Magnet AXIOM macOS Examinations (AX350)
And thanks to our Training Annual Pass (TAP), students have been eligible to take as many courses as they want within a 12-month span (don’t have a TAP yet? Click here to learn more.)
Magnet User Summit Brought Digital Forensics Experts to Nashville and The Hague
Magnet User Summit 2019 was our biggest event yet! A three-day conference designed to bring digital forensics experts together to learn the latest trends in the industry and to learn more about how to maximize the use of Magnet Forensics products in their investigations, MUS2019 was a great success — so much so that we’re bringing it back to Nashville May 11-13! Check out this highlight reel and be sure to head to www.magnetusersummit.com to save your spot for MUS2020.
Magnet AUTOMATE Helps Labs Complete Investigations Over 2x Faster
Early in 2019, we introduced Magnet AUTOMATE, a new solution that allows labs to complete their investigations faster by powering a repeatable forensic workflow that minimizes downtime and maximizes efficiency. Since its release, we’ve gotten great feedback from the market and have enhanced AUTOMATE greatly with Magnet AUTOMATE 2.0 — which reduces processing time by 90% and includes case merging, maximizing computing resources, and integration with the fastest imaging hardware in the industry: Atola TaskForce!
Introducing Magnet SHIELD to Empower Frontline Officers
In October, we released Magnet SHIELD, an innovative new solution that empowers the frontline police officers and investigators in your police service to easily capture and report on digital evidence from consenting victims and witnesses in the field.
Magnet SHIELD will give officers and investigators the ability to:
- Quickly and easily capture chat, picture, and video evidence at the scene
- Immediately produce shareable evidence reports
- Preserve key digital evidence from consenting victims and witnesses
- Enable victims and witnesses to select the evidence they want to share
Learn more over at the Magnet SHIELD page.
The First Winner of the Magnet Forensics Scholarship Program
After all of the nominations, the results came in: We were proud to announce the first recipient of the Magnet Forensics Scholarship Program, Eric Dalla Mura, Detective Corporal at the Burlington Police Department in Burlington, VT. Learn more about Eric in this Q&A and keep an eye out for the 2020 winner soon!
Get Your Magnet Merchandise!
Just in time for Giving Tuesday, we unveiled our new Magnet Merchandise store, loaded with exclusive Magnet Forensics branded items and with all profits will be going to charity — we’re proud to support the International Justice Mission with the launch of our new store! And there’s still time to take advantage of our 15% discount off your first purchase. Simply visit magnetmerchandise.com and use the code MAGNET15 during checkout.
Here’s to Great Things in 2020!
As you can see, 2019 was an eventful year for us here at Magnet Forensics! And it looks like there’s no slowing down in 2020. Be sure to check back regularly at the Magnet Forensics Blog for more updates as they come.
From everyone at Magnet Forensics, thank you all for all of your support and for the work you do. We’re truly honored to be trusted to help you in your work and we’ll continue innovating to help you get there faster and safer. Happy holidays!