Android Forensics of Edited Messages on Instagram

The rapid advancement of communication technologies has revolutionized how users interact through social media platforms, such as Instagram. The Instagram's Direct Message feature allows users to share various types of content. While this feature is useful for correcting typographical errors in casual conversations, it also presents a potential risk in the context of cybercrime, where criminals may alter the messages to eliminate evidence. The large number of Instagram users and Android's highest market share worldwide present significant challenges when verifying message authenticity during investigations. This study utilizes Genymotion to create a virtual Android environment and employs adb on Linux to acquire data from. This paper presents the analysis of edited Instagram messages on a virtual Android device using adb in Kali Linux. The results indicate that edited messages can be identified along with their detailed edit histories, serving as crucial digital evidence in the legal proceedings to recover pertinent information and ensure the integrity of digital evidence.