Forensic investigation of social networking applications

Abstract

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