Towards adapting metamodelling technique for an online social networks forensic investigation (OSNFI) Domain

With the ease of use of smart devices, most data is now kept and exchanged in digital forms such as images, diaries, calendars, movies, and so on. Digital forensic investigation is a new technology that emerged from criminals' who extensively use computers and digital storage devices to commit different types of crimes. To address this issue, a new domain called Online Social Networks Forensic (OSNF) was created to investigate these dynamic crimes perpetrated on social media platforms. OSNFI seeks to obtain, organise, investigate, and visualise user information as direct, objective, and fair evidence. Considering the millions of individuals using social media to share and communicate, they are becoming increasingly relevant for criminal investigations. In forensics investigation of online social network, there are currently major problems such as: lack of structured procedures, the lack of unified automated methods, and the lack of a theoretical context. The use of non-uniform and ad hoc forensic techniques and procedures not only reduces the effectiveness of the process, but also affects the reliability and creditability of the proof in criminal proceedings. As a result, this paper will provide a method derived from the software engineering domain known as metamodelling, which will integrate OSNFI knowledge into an artifact known as a metamodel

Forensic investigation of social networking applications

Social networking applications such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin may be involved in instances of misuse such as copyright infringement, data protection violations, defamation, identity theft, harassment, and dissemination of confidential information and malware that can affect both organizations and individuals. In this paper we examine the computer forensic process of obtaining digital evidence from social networking applications and the legal aspects of such. Currently there do not appear to be commonly available guidelines for organizations aimed specifically at the computer forensic process of investigation of social networking applications

A framework for the forensic analysis of user interaction with social media

The increasing use of social media, applications or platforms that allow users to interact online, ensures that this environment will provide a useful source of evidence for the forensics examiner. Current tools for the examination of digital evidence find this data problematic as they are not designed for the collection and analysis of online data. Therefore, this paper presents a framework for the forensic analysis of user interaction with social media. In particular, it presents an inter-disciplinary approach for the quantitative analysis of user engagement to identify relational and temporal dimensions of evidence relevant to an investigation. This framework enables the analysis of large data sets from which a (much smaller) group of individuals of interest can be identified. In this way, it may be used to support the identification of individuals who might be ‘instigators’ of a criminal event orchestrated via social media, or a means of potentially identifying those who might be involved in the ‘peaks’ of activity. In order to demonstrate the applicability of the framework, this paper applies it to a case study of actors posting to a social media Web site