With the rise of remote work came the boom of short message communication in the workplace. While email and phone calls still rank as the top two most used communication tools in the workplace, short message applications rank closely behind in third.
What is a “short message”? It’s exactly what it sounds like – a brief message sent between users via a chat application. Common chat applications include Slack, Teams, WhatsApp, Discord, Signal, and text messaging (SMS.)
Because each application has its native format, they’re difficult to process and review holistically as part of a digital investigation.
Legal professionals must review these messages in an eDiscovery platform such as Relativity to get a complete picture of the communication between custodians.
Understanding Relativity’s RSMF file
Relativity is one of the leading eDiscovery platforms, trusted and primarily used by legal professionals and litigation support teams. It’s used to manage and analyze large volumes of electronically stored information (ESI) during the discovery phase of litigation, investigations, regulatory compliance, and other legal matters.
The Relativity Short Message Format (RSMF) file plays a crucial role in the e-Discovery space. It created a standardized file for ingesting a variety of different messaging file formats into the Relativity platform. Once in the platform, legal teams review chat messages in the Relativity Short Message Viewer for analysis.
RSMF files adhere to established standards and protocols for digital evidence, ensuring their integrity, authenticity, and admissibility in legal proceedings.
Benefits of RSMF exports from Axiom Cyber
Potentially relevant chat messages aren’t just stored on mobile phones: computer and cloud data sources also contain valuable evidence.
Provide your legal team with a comprehensive view of all chat messages relevant to a case with Magnet Forensics DFIR solutions:
- Selective RSMF export in Axiom Cyber – you can select a single message or message attachment and export it as an RSMF file, which will export the entire chat thread around that message/attachment (not just the single item).
- Bulk RSMF export in Axiom Cyber – the RSMF export feature also supports being able to export all the RSMF messages in an image at once.
- Use targeted collection profiles to limit the data you acquire and cull the noise before pulling it into Axiom Cyber.
- Use Magnet Verakey to perform a comprehensive full file system extraction of the latest iOS devices and leading Android devices. Automatically process the data in Axiom Cyber and export an RSMF for key messaging application data, such as Android Messages, Android SMS/MMS, Signal, WhatsApp and more.
Artifacts Included in an RSMF export from Axiom Cyber
The following parsed artifacts can be exported as an RSMF file for ingestion into Relativity for review:
Cloud Acquire
- Slack
- Teams
Computer
- Discord
- Facebook Messenger
- iMessage
- iMessage/SMS/MMS
- KakaoTalk
- Signal
- Skype
- Slack
- Teams
- Telegram
- Viber
- Zoom
Mobile
- Android Messages
- Android SMS / MMS
- Discord
- Facebook Messenger
- iMessage/SMS/MMS
- KakaoTalk
- Samsung Messages
- Signal
- Skype
- Slack
- Snapchat
- Teams
- Telegram
- Wickr Me
- Zoom
Additional resources & Axiom Cyber free trial
- Learn about all the ways Axiom Cyber supports eDiscovery investigations in our blog post “10 Ways Magnet Forensics Supports eDiscovery”
- Learn more about how Axiom Cyber and Verakey are used together to investigate insider threats in the webinar “Investigating a Turncloak: A case study on when Axiom Cyber and Verakey intersect with a malicious insider”
- Have you tried Magnet Axiom Cyber yet? Request your free trial here.
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