IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jftint/v12y2020i11p184-d435929.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Browser Forensic Investigations of WhatsApp Web Utilizing IndexedDB Persistent Storage

Author

Listed:
  • Furkan Paligu

    (Computer Science Department, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, TX 77340, USA)

  • Cihan Varol

    (Computer Science Department, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, TX 77340, USA)

Abstract

Digital Evidence is becoming an indispensable factor in most legal cases. However, technological advancements that lead to artifact complexity, are forcing investigators to create sophisticated connections between the findings and the suspects for admissibility of evidence in court. This paper scrutinizes whether IndexedDB, an emerging browser technology, can be a source of digital evidence to provide additional and correlating support for traditional investigation methods. It particularly focuses on the artifacts of the worldwide popular application, WhatsApp. A single case pretest–posttest quasi experiment is applied with WhatsApp Messenger and Web Application to populate and investigate artifacts in IndexedDB storage of Google Chrome. The findings are characterized and presented with their potential to be utilized in forensic investigation verifications. The storage locations of the artifacts are laid out and operations of extraction, conversion and presentation are systematized. Additionally, a proof of concept tool is developed for demonstration. The results show that WhatsApp Web IndexedDB storage can be employed for time frame analysis, demonstrating its value in evidence verification.

Suggested Citation

  • Furkan Paligu & Cihan Varol, 2020. "Browser Forensic Investigations of WhatsApp Web Utilizing IndexedDB Persistent Storage," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-17, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jftint:v:12:y:2020:i:11:p:184-:d:435929
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/12/11/184/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/12/11/184/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Weizhi Meng & Thanassis Giannetsos & Christian D. Jensen, 2022. "Information and Future Internet Security, Trust and Privacy," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-2, December.
    2. Furkan Paligu & Cihan Varol, 2022. "Browser Forensic Investigations of Instagram Utilizing IndexedDB Persistent Storage," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-33, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jftint:v:12:y:2020:i:11:p:184-:d:435929. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.