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What’s on the Horizon? An In-Depth Forensic Analysis of Android and iOS Applications

In the digital forensics discipline, the lack of comprehensive research that addresses investigative challenges and opportunities for newer mobile Operating Systems (OSs) such as Android and iOS keeps continuing. These two OSs are currently widely operated by millions of smartphones and used by millions of users; therefore, forensic investigators need to be prepared to analyze these OSs during an investigation giving consideration to mobile app updates. The current research efforts focus on the forensic analysis of individual applications of certain OSs. In this study, we conducted a detailed forensic investigation of both Android and iOS OSs to (1) elucidate their structures for investigators, (2) identify pertinent forensic artifacts, (3) highlight any privacy and security concerns in popular applications present on both OSs, and (4) validate the forensic investigation on the selected tools for reproducibility and verification purposes. This work aims to analyze 27 Android and 33 iOS mobile applications comprehensively.