Setting The Tone For Sound Forensic Investigations On Android-Based Social Media Platforms
Setting The Tone For Sound Forensic Investigations On Android-Based Social Media Platforms
Setting The Tone For Sound Forensic Investigations On Android-Based Social Media Platforms
https://doi.org/10.22214/ijraset.2023.49982
International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology (IJRASET)
ISSN: 2321-9653; IC Value: 45.98; SJ Impact Factor: 7.538
Volume 11 Issue IV Apr 2023- Available at www.ijraset.com
Abstract: Android Social Media Applications have become a yardstick in facilitating a platform for human socialization on
cyber space. They are an inevitable alternative, which is fast replacing most traditional ways that lacks full multimedia
interaction adored by many. These applications are of forensic value as they account for most activities helpful in either
incriminating or exonerating suspects in cases of adverse events. By default, most social applications store activity data in
specific directories they create at the background of the hosting Android devices. Through expertise, this data can be extracted
and analyzed to come up with meaningful insights useful in an inquiry of digital evidence interest. This study focused on
forensics of Twitter and Clubhouse android based social media applications. The approach taken was to install these
applications on emerging Android devices using the Samsung Galaxy S20+ (SMGS20+) and Samsung Galaxy Tab A7
(SMGTA7), populate known test data, perform data acquisition, execute data analysis noting results and then do a comparative
analysis of tools and techniques utilized towards provisioning alternative solutions.
Keywords: Social Media Application, Android Forensics, Open Source Tools, Data Acquisition, Application Analysis
I. INTRODUCTION
Android devices with embedded Multi-Media Card (eMMC) employ trim support, erasing the content of unallocated space every
time the device is shut down. eMMC storage integrates flash memory and controller onto a single chip. The controller among
other things perform trimming of unused data blocks, remapping secure data erasure when requested. This is another reason we
need not shutdown an Android device but put it on charger and place it on Faraday bag [1]. As per the study by [2] various
applications in general do store and access data the user is not aware of.
He reveals that this is facilitated by the fact that many applications by design seek permission during the installation process to
access various hardware, services and data on the mobile device camera, GPS navigation service and photos respectively. This data
with no doubt can be a primary source of evidence before the jury.
According to [1], every activity a user does on Android device interacts with its associated application. Some applications come
preinstalled by Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), while others are third party Apps downloaded and installed by the user
like Twitter and Clubhouse among others. Routine functions such as contacts, calls and SMS are performed through these
applications.
Android application analysis is crucial during the course of an investigation given their increased use in the modern world of web
based social networking.
Most of these Apps store sensitive information on the device's internal memory or SD card such that, performing forensics of
social media Apps and many more other Apps may provide valuable information such as user location, communication details and
many more. However, forensic examiners need to develop necessary skills to convert available data into meaningful insights by
having a comprehensive understanding of how android applications handle user data.
The fact that Android applications are not bound by Certificate Authority and use self-signed certificates, this has prompted
development of unprecedented number of various applications for which some are designed for social interaction.
According to [2], mobile applications generate and store large data sets on mobile devices which they are hosted and this data can
be useful in the reconstruction of events. Because of this, forensics of android social applications play a crucial role during an
investigation.
©IJRASET: All Rights are Reserved | SJ Impact Factor 7.538 | ISRA Journal Impact Factor 7.894 | 14
International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology (IJRASET)
ISSN: 2321-9653; IC Value: 45.98; SJ Impact Factor: 7.538
Volume 11 Issue IV Apr 2023- Available at www.ijraset.com
In their study, [3] mentioned that it is inevitable for Law enforcement agents not to find either popular or less popular social media
applications with interfaces of different languages and functionalities in which investigators would not be having sufficient expert
knowledge about. In most cases, investigators are not aware of potential evidentiary artifacts that can be discovered from such
applications. It is from this background that the researchers were triggered to explore more on the behavior of Twitter with spaces
and Clubhouse so as to try and discover the potential traces they may leave behind in emerging Android devices hosting them.
Since android mobile devices have become essential for communication and socialization, privacy concerns have grown, so most
smartphone vendors have implemented multiple security protection measures like encryption to protect user data on their products,
making forensics harder. Inevitably, smartphone producers are always behind digital forensic professionals in developing
forensically sound methods that yield valuable insights admissible in court. [4] proposes that mobile forensic research should find
intrusive approaches like bypassing security features by exploiting hardware and social media application vulnerabilities to fill this
gap. This study also aligned itself with this similar technique in doing forensics of the aforementioned social media applications to
establish a sound procedure for forensic investigations on android-based social media platforms.
Twitter is a social networking service on which users post and interact with messages known as "tweets" [5]. Only registered users
can tweet, like tweets, and retweet tweets, yet unregistered users are limited to only reading tweets which are public. Apart from
the former functionalities, twitter plartform also allows for direct messages between two accounts and can further enable users to
host or participate in live audio virtual environment called spaces which allows for real time group conversations which can be
moderated by the Host or co-hosts. This platform accommodates an unlimited number of listeners, 1 host, 2 co-hosts and 10
speakers. The host has a privilege of recording the whole meeting for future reference. Any Twitter user can create a Space from
an Android or iOS based device, however this study only focuses on Android based Twitter.
Just like Twitter spaces, Clubhouse is also a virtual place for casual, drop-in audio chats. According to [6], This platform provides
for numerous virtual rooms which can accommodate a lot of people to explore on various conversations. This plartform provides a
space for friends and new people to meet and tell stories, ask questions, debate, learn and have impromptu conversations on
thousands of different topics. Though the center of this platform is all about audio charts, it also provides for full multimedia
interactions through text, picture and video clip attachments if need be. Whenever people get together, it is beautiful, but it can
also get messy. Clubhouse Community norms prohibit nudity, terrorism, harassment, intellectual property violations, suicide, and
other illegal actions. Certain regulations have been put in place to reduce wrongdoing, yet some will still be found wanting.
This study investigated Twitter and Clubhouse artifacts on developing android technology using sound forensics. Source SMG20+
and SMGTA7. After installing the social networking apps and creating test accounts on both devices, test data was input by
performing various user behaviors. Open source and enterprise methods extracted relevant application data. Analyzing retrieved
logical images with open source and business methods yielded results. Finally, all strategies were compared and recommendations
offered. The study examined the behavior of the social networking apps to find the traces they leave on android devices and
analyze how well these traces may be used for forensic purposes.
©IJRASET: All Rights are Reserved | SJ Impact Factor 7.538 | ISRA Journal Impact Factor 7.894 | 15
International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology (IJRASET)
ISSN: 2321-9653; IC Value: 45.98; SJ Impact Factor: 7.538
Volume 11 Issue IV Apr 2023- Available at www.ijraset.com
In this study, MOBILedit failed to produce any results whilst UFED techniques yielded good results on all applications except for
Line and Snapchat.
Forensic of Android Kik Messenger was done by [13]. The main objective of the study was to identify, recover and analyze
forensic artefacts of Kik Messenger in order to come up with meaningful insights. The researcher recommended further forensics
of improved versions of Kik Messenger preferably on other OS platforms in the market.
In their study, [14] provided a comprehensive overview on the assessment of techniques of Android forensics and Android
Antiforensics. They started by expounding on android operating system and its architecture in detail. Thereafter they used the
general stages in mobile forensics to assess various android forensic techniques. This was achieved by reviewing literature related
to android forensic techniques. Furthermore, the study discussed on the four basic classes of android antiforensics which are,
Destroying Evidence, Trail obfuscation, Data Wiping, Counterfeiting evidence and Attacks against forensics processes or tools.
The research concluded by stating that Android Technology is dynamic and fast evolving and lacks proper standardization.
Android forensic analysis of private chat and normal chat on social messenger was done by [15]. Their study worked on the
acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of private chat’s metadata which are obtained from Telegram, Line, and KakaoTalk. In
this study, the researchers demonstrate how the artifacts are related to one another between analyzed results from normal and
private chats. They then presented a guide on how to go about conducting a cybercrime investigation on social messenger
applications. The approach used was to first take note of all present directories contained in the package folder of each application
in question before any activity is performed. Hash functions of all these directories were taken note of and thereafter various
activities were performed and the same package folders were checked for consistence through the hash functions. Only directories
with changed hash functions were investigated. For future works, the researchers recommended further studies on the investigation
of deleted chat recovery, decryption of encrypted chat, and memory forensics in smartphones.
In their extensive investigation of establishing a novel model that can extract data from encrypted mobile devices, [16] suggested
that future research should focus on more invasive strategies including circumventing security features and exploiting known
weaknesses. This study lists five Conventional Mobile Forensic Extraction Techniques: Manual, Logical, Hex Dumping/JTAG,
Chip-Off, and Micro Read. They examined how enhanced encryption affects these strategies and android phone data privacy and
confidentiality. Manufacturers cannot access data at rest or the hard-coded unique passwords and keys used for decryption. Trusted
Execution Environment (TEE) protects user data and OEMs' unique data and technologies. Mobile device users and forensic
examiners have minimal control over mobile devices. Root of Trust is another OEM anti-forensic method (RoT). This technique
examines all hardware and software in the boot-chain to guarantee that only approved components are run during boot. This
renders all typical acquisition forensic approaches involving unsigned third-party software ineffective. The paper suggests more
research on mobile forensic data extraction standardization and validation.
Overally, the review of literature reflected that both Android Social Media Applications and the associated devices hosting them
continue to evolve and continuous research needs to be done to improve and ensure relevance of existing forensic techniques hence
the justification for this study.
III. PROPOSED WORK AND METHODOLOGY
The approach taken was to set a case study involving two emerging android phones as mentioned in the Hardware and Software
Requirements. In these two phones, Twitter and Clubhouse were installed on both devices. Accounts for each application in both
phones were setup and known test data was fed through random communication between the two phones. During the experiments,
the file systems of the device storage were actively monitored, so that the data created or modified by each actions was located and
correlated with that action. Thereafter, extraction of data for each application on both phones was done using open source and
enterprise tools. Analysis of the extracted data was then done using open source and commercial techniques. A comparative
analysis of various selected techniques was conducted and thereafter a report was made.
©IJRASET: All Rights are Reserved | SJ Impact Factor 7.538 | ISRA Journal Impact Factor 7.894 | 16
International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology (IJRASET)
ISSN: 2321-9653; IC Value: 45.98; SJ Impact Factor: 7.538
Volume 11 Issue IV Apr 2023- Available at www.ijraset.com
B. Workflow Diagram
Figure 2 shows the logical flow of how the proposed work was to be carried out in chronological order.
C. Preliminary Work
The preliminary work covered the selection of open source and enterprise techniques used in the extraction and analysis of Twitter
and Clubhouse sitting in SMGS20+ and SMGTA7. Table 1 shows the open source tools considered while Table 2 shows
enterprise tools. The open source tools were freely acquired whilst 30-day trial versions of selected enterprise tools were prudently
solicited for by the researchers from respective vendors.
D. Implementation
Guided by the scope, the implementation of the project covered Preparation Phase, Processing Phase and Documentation and
Reporting. The preparation phase involved research about SM G20+ and SM G TA7 which were the phones to be examined. This
also covered a further study of the acquisition and examination techniques selected during the preliminary work. In this phase,
Identification of social media applications to be worked with was done. The Processing phase comprised these major tasks
amongst many, logical image acquisition, decrypting logical backup and analyzing the image to get meaningful insights. Lastly,
Documentation and Reporting of every activity was performed.
©IJRASET: All Rights are Reserved | SJ Impact Factor 7.538 | ISRA Journal Impact Factor 7.894 | 17
International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology (IJRASET)
ISSN: 2321-9653; IC Value: 45.98; SJ Impact Factor: 7.538
Volume 11 Issue IV Apr 2023- Available at www.ijraset.com
E. Preparation Phase
The implementation started with the acquisition of a forensic workstation and two emerging android devices stated in the
Hardware and Software requirements provided earlier. Twitter and Clubhouse were installed in both SMGS20+ and SMGTA7.
Pertinent application accounts were created and data entry though various application activities over a period of time was carried
out. Thereafter a forensic workstation was setup and all selected open source and enterprise tools were installed. Figure 3 shows a
screenshot of a setup forensic workstation with MOBILedit, Belkasoft, Magnet Axiom Process & Examine, UFED 4PC, Andriller
and Autopsy.
F. Processing Phase
The processing phase started with gathering requisite information about SM G20+ and SM G TA7 needed for preparation of
extraction of possible images. This was then followed by the extraction of logical images using open source tools and lastly by
enterprise tools. Table 3 shows a comparative analysis of Information gathered using CPU-Z, Root Checker and Manual check.
©IJRASET: All Rights are Reserved | SJ Impact Factor 7.538 | ISRA Journal Impact Factor 7.894 | 18
International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology (IJRASET)
ISSN: 2321-9653; IC Value: 45.98; SJ Impact Factor: 7.538
Volume 11 Issue IV Apr 2023- Available at www.ijraset.com
After extracting the logical image using the adb tool, the image was then decompressed using the abe.jar tool. The Backup.ab was
first uniquely renamed to bac.ab and was saved in C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-18.0.1\bin where the abe.jar tool was installed. The
command used to decrypt the bac.ab file into bac.tar file is: Java.exe –jar abe.jar unpack bac.ab bac.tar. The backup password
which is the phone password was entered and the decryption began as shown in Figure 5.
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International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology (IJRASET)
ISSN: 2321-9653; IC Value: 45.98; SJ Impact Factor: 7.538
Volume 11 Issue IV Apr 2023- Available at www.ijraset.com
IV. RESULTS
This section covered extraction and analysis results by open and enterprise techniques. The results are published in a comparative
manner in an effort to reveal the performance of each applied technique.
A. Extraction Results
Only simple and advanced logical extractions were considered in this study because the phones were not rooted. Rooting the
phones would risk data loss as the bootloaders of the devices under study were locked. It was investigated and noted that the
devices under investigation were all associated with data wiping antiforensics mechanism whenever one tries to unlock the
bootloader hence no attempt was made to try and root the phones. Table 4 shows the overall results of extraction by each technique
taking cognizance of how they performed regarding the pulling of pertinent application package folders i.e. com.clubhouse.app
and com.twitter.android for both SMGS20+ and SMGTA7. The packages were manually checked for through windows explorer as
the images were all in a logical format.
©IJRASET: All Rights are Reserved | SJ Impact Factor 7.538 | ISRA Journal Impact Factor 7.894 | 20
International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology (IJRASET)
ISSN: 2321-9653; IC Value: 45.98; SJ Impact Factor: 7.538
Volume 11 Issue IV Apr 2023- Available at www.ijraset.com
As can be seen from Table 5, Magnet Axiom Examine was only able to analyze the image extracted by Axiom Process. By default,
Axiom Examine can only analyze files with (.mfdb) extension hence why it was not able to analyze files extracted from other
extraction techniques.
MOBILedit is compatible with many file formats including the (.ufdx) extension from UFED 4PC, hence it was able to analyze
most images except those from Axiom Process and Default Backup. Since Andriller and ADB tool technique failed to pull Twitter
package as indicated in Table 4, MOBILedit had no artifacts found the same in both phones.
As can be seen in Table 5 again, Belkasoft failed to analyze any image simply because the trial version came by default without a
decryption module. The decryption module is offered by a third party company and does not come along with a trial version
package.
DB4S was only able to analyze SQL lite databases found on images extracted by ADB tool, Device Driver, Andriller, MOBILedit,
Axiom Process and Belkasoft. Since no SQL Lite database was found for twitter on all images extracted, DB4S was only able to
find meaningful insights for Clubhouse.
It is significant to note that none of the tools were able to analyze data extracted by the Default Backup method. It seems this
Samsung backup technique encrypts data in a format that cannot be handled by any of the explored techniques.
Whilst Table 5 is just a general summary on artifacts found by each analytical technique applied on each extracted image, Table 6
and 7 reflects summary of type of artifacts found by each analytical technique for Twitter and Clubhouse respectively on both
SMGS20+ and SMGTA7. We have same indication of results in tables 5, 6 and 7 for both the two phones simply because same
activities were performed on the two Samsung phones and similar forensic techniques were also applied.
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International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology (IJRASET)
ISSN: 2321-9653; IC Value: 45.98; SJ Impact Factor: 7.538
Volume 11 Issue IV Apr 2023- Available at www.ijraset.com
V. LIMITATIONS
The major limitation is that both phones were not rooted and rooting them was a challenge as their bootloader were locked. This
limited the researcher to only consider simple and advanced logical extractions. The other limitation is that the enterprise tools
secured were 30-days’ trial versions, the researcher had to learn and use the tools in a limited time. This indeed put the researcher
under pressure and some features of other tools were not fully exhausted. In trying to overcome this challenge, the researcher
improvised by seeking startup training and tutorials form the technical support teams of the sought tools and by working overtime.
Belkasoft had a limitation that it came along without a decryption module, hence all images extracted by it were encrypted.
However, this challenge was overcome by decrypting these images through mobile edit and abe.jar tool. This was almost a similar
case with Andriller as its decryption module failed handle the compression format of the emerging android phones used in the
study. This challenge was overcome by using the abe.jar tool.
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[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter#Tweets as@26 April 2022.
[6] https://community.clubhouse.com/ as@ 25 April 2022.
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[8] Oleg Afonin, Vladimir Katalov 2016 Mobile Forensics – Advanced Investigative Strategies pages 54,56
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International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology (IJRASET)
ISSN: 2321-9653; IC Value: 45.98; SJ Impact Factor: 7.538
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[12] Hermawan, Tofan & Suryanto, Yohan & Alief, Fahdiaz & Roselina, Linda. (2020). Android Forensic Tools Analysis for Unsend Chat on Social Media. 233-238.
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[16] Fukami, Aya, Radina Stoykova, and Zeno Geradts. 2021. A New Model for Forensic Data Extraction from Encrypted Mobile Devices. Forensic Science
International: Digital Investigation 38: 1–10.
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