Forensic Communication Analysis: Challenges and Opportunities

Recently, mobile forensics has received considerable attention from researchers and practitioners due to its significant role in our society. With the advent of mobile devices and the breakthroughs in new communication technologies, various devices have risen to prominence in daily communication, where the intermingling of text, images, videos, audio, and calls occurs across different communication channels, resulting in massive data dumps. While this heterogeneity enriches the communication experience, it challenges Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) and Digital Forensic Practitioners (DFPs) to inspect and find evidence in the communication data dumps automatically. However, despite the rich diversity of existing tools and methodologies in analyzing mobile forensic data, there are several problems that these existing tools have in common, which are related to data analysis in evidence collection. Therefore, this study discusses the current forensic solutions and new approaches from a practical point of view. Based on this, and considering the investigative work experience with LEAs in Germany, we share our expectations and knowledge about tackling big mobile forensic data. Instead of providing a step-by-step guide for conducting a specific forensic investigation, this study aims to inform the reader about the technologies and tools used for data analysis in mobile forensics, along with new research directions.