WhatsApp Forensics: Locating Artifacts on Web Clients and Standalone Desktop Applications
Primary Investigator:
Kathryn Seigfried-Spellar
Nicolás Villacís Vukadinović
Abstract
WhatsApp is the most popular instant messaging application worldwide. Since 2016, users can send and receive messages through desktop clients, either through the standalone WhatsApp desktop application or the web client accessible from any web browser. The author identified a gap in the literature regarding WhatsApp forensics for desktop and web clients. The aim of the study was to locate forensic artifacts on WhatsApp clients. These clients included the standalone desktop application on both Windows and Mac operating systems. Chrome and Firefox web clients were also analyzed for the Windows operating system, as well as Chrome and Safari web clients on the Mac operating system. A WhatsApp log file was identified as the main artifact providing information throughout all clients analyzed. Cached profile pictures were also found, as well as history information about visited websites and ran applications.