Digital response services

Locked out of your damaged device? Know how you can recover.

It can happen to anyone.

When a senior level executive recently mistakenly dropped his mobile device while getting into a car, accidentally driving over it, causing significant damage to the screen, keypad, and data connections. Efforts were made to repair the device, but it remained inoperable.

All was not lost, however, as KPMG Cyber professionals came to the rescue. They were able to successfully remove the flash memory from the device and complete a full data recovery. What seemed like a potential nightmare turned out to be a positive outcome: the executive’s sensitive data was recovered and then securely provided back to the client.

Today’s reality

• Mobile devices have become heavily intertwined into everyday business and life—with personal devices containing work material and vice versa.
• The acquisition of data from mobile devices presents a number of limitations for accessing deleted data. Oftentimes damaged device examinations are impossible when using traditional forensic approaches.
• As device security has been increased, unlocking a device may be impossible without knowledge of the user’s password, fingerprint, or other security implementation. Detailed analysis and data recovery may require more time and effort than ever before, and the inability to access the data only exacerbates these issues.

Seventy-two percent of employees store sensitive data on their mobile device.1 As mobile devices become more prevalent in the marketplace, they also become more interconnected and contain the potential to store even greater volumes of vital data. Often the ability to acquire data from a device is limited to a software application’s ability to interface with it. In the event of a physically damaged or a locked device, the ability to acquire the data through conventional retrieval methods may be impossible.