A Comparative Study of Forensic Tools for WhatsApp Analysis using NIST Measurements

Abstract

Abstract—One of the popularly used features on Android smartphone is WhatsApp. WhatsApp can be misused, such as for criminal purposes. To conduct investigation involving smartphone devices, the investigators need to use forensic tools. Nonetheless, the development of the existing forensic tool technology is not as fast as the development of mobile technology and WhatsApp. The latest version of smartphones and WhatsApp always comes up. Therefore, a research on the performance of the current forensic tools in order to handle a case involving Android smartphones and WhatsApp in particular need to be done. This research evaluated existing forensic tools for performing forensic analysis on WhatsApp using parameters from NIST and WhatsApp artifacts. The outcome shows that Belkasoft Evidence has the highest index number, WhatsApp Key/DB Extractor has superiority in terms of costs, and Oxygen Forensic has superiority in obtaining WhatsApp