Open Access

ARTICLE

Instagram Mobile Application Digital Forensics

by Muhammad Asim Mubarik¹, Zhijian Wang¹, Yunyoung Nam^2,*, Seifedine Kadry³, Muhammad Azam waqar⁴

1 College of Information and Computer Science, Hohai University, Nanjing, 210098, China
2 Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Soonchunhyang University, Asan, 336811, Korea
3 Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Beirut Arab University, Beirut, 000000, Lebanon
4 School of Business Management, NFC Institute of Engineering & Fertilizer Research, Faisalabad, 38800, Pakistan

* Corresponding Author: Yunyoung Nam. Email:

Computer Systems Science and Engineering 2021, 37(2), 169-186. https://doi.org/10.32604/csse.2021.014472

Received 22 September 2020; Accepted 27 November 2020; Issue published 01 March 2021

Abstract

In this research, we developed a plugin for our automated digital forensics framework to extract and preserve the evidence from the Android and the IOS-based mobile phone application, Instagram. This plugin extracts personal details from Instagram users, e.g., name, user name, mobile number, ID, direct text or audio, video, and picture messages exchanged between different Instagram users. While developing the plugin, we identified resources available in both Android and IOS-based devices holding key forensics artifacts. We highlighted the poor privacy scheme employed by Instagram. This work, has shown how the sensitive data posted in the Instagram mobile application can easily be reconstructed, and how the traces, as well as the URL links of visual messages, can be used to access the privacy of any Instagram user without any critical credential verification. We also employed the anti-forensics method on the Instagram Android’s application and were able to restore the application from the altered or corrupted database file, which any criminal mind can use to set up or trap someone else. The outcome of this research is a plugin for our digital forensics ready framework software which could be used by law enforcement and regulatory agencies to reconstruct the digital evidence available in the Instagram mobile application directories on both Android and IOS-based mobile phones.

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Keywords

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