Browser Analysis of Residual Facebook Data
Browser Analysis of Residual Facebook Data
     Abstract—As social media applications such as Facebook                 questions about the way that browsers interact with social media
 become an integral part of our society, they are also becoming an          sites and the types of residual data that are resident after these
 important source of information in a digital (forensics)                   interactions [5-7]. A recent article in government technology
 investigation. In this paper, we examine the potential to recover          acknowledges that information posted publicly on social media
 artifacts of forensic interest after three popular browsers, namely:       sites is legally admissible in criminal investigations [8]. While
 Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer, have been            postings on social media outlet prompts investigations into
 used to access Facebook. Findings from this research will                  everyone from high school students to police officers [9, 10],
 hopefully contribute to a better understanding to mobile device            questions arise as to how evidence is acquired when social
 and app forensics.
                                                                            media data is either not public or has been removed from a
     Keywords—Digital forensics, Mobile forensics, Mobile app
                                                                            particular social media site. Web browsers, such as Mozilla
 forensics, Browser forensics, Facebook forensics                           Firefox, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer, provide end-
                                                                            users with access to their social media accounts across a wide
                                                                            range of devices. This perverseness makes them interesting from
                         I.    INTRODUCTION                                 an investigation perspective. In addition, forensic artifacts from
     The continued assimilation of social media into all aspects            browsers may complement evidence from the analysis of the
 of life is blatantly visible in today’s networked societies. Statista      specific social network app, such as Facebook.
 estimates that by the end of 2019 there will be approximately
                                                                                As noted by Statista [11], Facebook is the dominate social
 2.77 billion social media users worldwide and that this number
                                                                            media provider. These queries prompted a preliminary
 will increase to around 3.02 billion by the end of 2021 [1]. This
                                                                            investigation into the forensic analysis of residual information
 escalation creates opportunities for legitimate revenue streams,
                                                                            that is resident on browsers that have interacted with the
 dissemination of false news and augmentation of digital
                                                                            Facebook social networking platform. Specifically, in this
 investigation capabilities. It was also estimated that revenue
                                                                            paper, we investigate Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and
 from social media will reach 39 billion Euros by the end of 2019
                                                                            Internet Explorer browsers that interact with Facebook over a
 [2]. Gartner predicts that individuals in mature markets will
                                                                            two-week timeline. Individual categories are documented for
 consume more “fake news” than factual information by 2022
                                                                            comparison purposes to indicate which browsers retain the
 [3]. As social media application (app) functionality increases,
                                                                            largest amount of data.
 new opportunities for residual data generation emerge. A recent
 article indicates that Facebook is testing the ability to upload 24-           The contributions of this research are two-fold.
 hour self-deleting logs from desktop browsers [4].
                                                                                1.   Provides a proof-of-concept that different browsers
     The reality is that social networking apps can be used in                       retain various amounts of data when they interact with
 today’s society for a host of unpleasant and/or potentially illegal                 social media sites.
 activities like bullying, stalking harassment and slander.
 Coupling this reality with research indicating that residual data,             2.   Contributes to discussions about documentation and
 in general, is increasingly being introduced into legal contexts,                   evidentiary artifacts generated through social media
 along with the legal implications for researchers, raises                           interactions while highlighting the importance of
                                                                                     verifying residual data artifacts.
                                                                      1441
Forensic Toolkit (FTK) Version 4.1.0.12 was utilized for the                                               TABLE II.          FIREFOX
data acquisition.                                                                                     Actions Performed - FF Evidence Found - FF   Category Found % - FF
                                                                              Account Creation                  2                     2                   100%
   The experiment took place in three stages that included                    Image Upload                      2                     2                   100%
Facebook profile creation, data generation and data extraction.               Text Write                        38                   12                    32%
The evidence was determined to be discovered if there was a                     Searches
                                                                                Chat Messages
                                                                                                                4
                                                                                                                6
                                                                                                                                      4
                                                                                                                                      0
                                                                                                                                                          100%
                                                                                                                                                            0%
match between keywords found and the activities performed, as                   Wall Posts                      24                    4                    17%
well as by the matching of the recorded date/time stamps.                       Profile Information             4                     4                   100%
                                                                              Text Read                         18                   11                    61%
    In the profile creation stage, three Facebook accounts were                 Wall Posts/Comments             12                   10                    83%
created using three separate browsers. The three accounts that                  Chat Messages
                                                                                Profile/Page View
                                                                                                                5
                                                                                                                1
                                                                                                                                      0
                                                                                                                                      1
                                                                                                                                                            0%
                                                                                                                                                          100%
were created on each browser were Fred Fox, Chris Chrome and                  Login                             1                     1                   100%
Bob IE. The data generation stage consisted of a number of                    Session End/Logout                0                     0                     0%
photo uploaded, comments, statuses, and created groups. The                   Total                             61                   28                    46%
                                                                       1442
Detailed extraction results for the Chrome browser are available                                                              TABLE IV.            INTERNET EXPLORER
in Table III - Google Chrome. During the analysis of the                                                                      Actions Performed - IE Evidence Found - IE   Category Found % - IE
extraction result it was observed that two paths provided                                             Account Creation                  2                    0                     0%
                                                                                                      Image Upload                      3                    3                    100%
valuable residual artifacts that included:                                                            Text Write                        8                    4                     50%
                                                                                                        Searches                        4                    4                    100%
• FacebookChrome .001/Partition 1/NONAME [NTFS]/                                                        Chat Messages                   1                    0                     0%
   [root]/sers/FTKuser/AppData/Local/Google/Chrome/User                                                 Wall Posts
                                                                                                        Profile Information
                                                                                                                                        3
                                                                                                                                        0
                                                                                                                                                             0
                                                                                                                                                             0
                                                                                                                                                                                   0%
                                                                                                                                                                                   0%
   Data/Default/History                                                                               Text Read                        11                    5                     45%
                                                                                                        Wall Posts/Comments             4                    1                     25%
• FacebookChrome .001/Partition 1/NONAME [NTFS]/                                                        Chat Messages                   3                    0                     0%
                                                                                                        Profile/Page View               4                    4                    100%
   [root]/Users/FTKuser/AppData/Local/Google/Chrome/Us                                                Login                             2                    2                    100%
   er Data/Default/Cache                                                                              Session End/Logout                1                    0                     0%
                                                                                                      Total                            27                    14                    52%
                                                                                               1443
              TABLE V.           IE RESIDUAL DATA LOCATIONS                                   Forensically sound data extraction toolkit: Future work
                                           Evidence                                       will also investigate designing a forensically sound data
Action Description    Action Details                             Evidence Location
                                           Description                                    extraction toolkit that can be used to automate the collection of
uploaded profile
                                                                 C:\Users\trey.osbor
                                                                                          data from browser applications on personal computers, laptops,
                                           Found image           n\AppData\Local\Te
photo
                                                                 mp\adtemp\ad_tm          mobile devices and virtual machines.
                                                                 facebookIEimage.00
                                                                 1\Partition
                                                                                              Machine learning-aided forensics: Another extension of
                                                                 2\NONAME                 this work is to explore the use of machine learning algorithms to
searched for chris                         Found keyword
chrome                                     search
                                                                 [NTFS]\[root]\Users      aid investigators in the identification and establishment of action
                                                                 \Administrator\App
                                                                                          intent. The result of this future work could perceivably provide
                                                                 Data\Local\Microsof
                                                                 t\Windows\Tempor         data that encourages additional investigation, creation, and
searched for and                           Found evidence of                              implementation of more efficient and effective solutions for
sent chris chrome                          being a friend with                            extracting social media residual data.
accepted friend                            Found evidence of
request from fred                          Fred Fox profile
fox                                        including From
                                                                                       1444
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