Digital Forensic Analysis of Fitbit Wearable Technology: An Investigator's Guide

Wearable technology, such as Fitbit devices, log a user's daily activities, heart rate, calories burned, step count, and sleep activity. This information is valuable to digital forensic investigators as it may serve as evidence to a crime, to either support a suspect's innocence or guilt. It is important for an investigator to find and analyze every piece of data for accuracy and integrity; however, there is no standard for conducting a forensic investigation for wearable technology. In this paper, we conduct a forensic analysis of two different Fitbit devices using open-source tools. It is the responsibility of the investigator to show how the data was obtained and to ensure that the data was not modified during the analysis. This paper will guide investigators in understanding what data is collected by a Fitbit device (specifically the Ionic smartwatch and Alta tracker), how to handle Fitbit devices, and how to extract and forensically analyze said devices using open-source tools, Autopsy Sleuth Kit and Bulk Extractor Viewer.