Forensic Considerations for the High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF)

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Presented at CyberScience2020 2020 by

Sean Russell

The High Efficiency File Format (HEIF) was adopted by Apple in 2017 as their favoured means of capturingimages from their camera application, with Android devices such as the Galaxy S10 providing support more recently.The format is positioned to replace JPEG as the de facto image compression file type, touting many modern featuresand better compression ratios over the aging standard. However, while millions of devices across the world arealready able to produce HEIF files, digital forensics research has not given the format much attention. As HEIF is acomplex container format, much different from traditional still picture formats, this leaves forensics practitionersexposed to risks of potentially mishandling evidence. This paper describes the forensically relevant features of theHEIF format, including those which could be used to hide data, or cause issues in an investigation, while alsoproviding commentary on the state of software support for the format. Finally, suggestions for current best-practiceare provided, before discussing the requirements of a forensically robust HEIF analysis tool.