Social Forensics

The use of online social networks and other digital communication services has become pervasive. Users’ social footprints contain a massive amount of data, including account information, message content, location data, recently connected devices, media, connected apps, tokens, and activity such as likes, conversations, and messages. Collecting and analyzing this massive amount of data scattered across multiple services is a challenging task, but advances in technology and technique are making the practice a cornerstone for litigators as evidence is truly everywhere.

The 2020 Industry Trends Survey conducted by Cellebrite points to the growing value of social media as a source to tap for investigations:

• 85% of investigators frequently review social media in typical investigations.
• 52% of all cases involve cloud data, which includes social media.

While digital forensics has evolved to focus on recovering and investigating data from devices and cloud accounts, social forensics is also evolving to become more effective by correlating data across social accounts faster and with greater accuracy.  

However, social media evidence still must be collected using careful, correct procedures and in a manner that ensures its integrity. Deft social forensics analysts apply the following framework to pin down the subject of an investigation:

1. Analysts extract data from a user’s social network profiles and communication services using various methods including taking advantage of stored credentials, artifacts and session cookies. 
2. Analysts store a version of the native data and make a copy for analysis.
3. Analysts then correlate data by employing dynamic techniques for mapping user profiles from different services to the same user. 
4. Analysts analyze data and identify pieces of information deemed important in a matter and provide a detailed report containing a subject’s activities and interactions. 
5. Analysts then preserve all data for litigators.

• Did you know that Facebook adds 500,000 new users to its fraternity every day? This amounts to the creation of 6 new profiles every second!
• There are 1.3 billion accounts on Twitter, with 326 million active users each month!
• As we write this blog, LinkedIn contains a user base of 500 million members whereas Snapchat has 187 million active users daily! In fact, 60% of Snapchat users are under the age of 25.
• Furthermore, Pinterest boasts of 200 million active users every month.
• Speaking of social media, how can we not talk about our favorite video content platform – YouTube? Did you know that YouTube sees around 1,148 billion mobile video views each day?
• When it comes to publishing content, users publish 74.7 million blog posts per month on WordPress alone!

Following the legal process can be challenging, but the trail of digital information on social media, if explored correctly, can offer remarkable support in any investigation.

Due to the increasing use of social applications on smartphones, they are the biggest repertoire of evidence for forensic investigators. In fact, half of Facebook users access Facebook through its mobile applications and are twice as active compared to those who use other devices (desktop, laptop). Thus, smart phones store a lot of potential information that social forensics analysts can extract with the right tools. Such evidence can provide crucial leads in a case.

With nearly twenty years of collective experience working on the most cutting-edge technologies, IST Discover-E’s Digital Forensics team has a uniquely advanced set of skills to tackle social forensics, digital collections, preservations, analysis, and consulting on multiple matters involving digital data. IST Social Forensics Analysts can:

• Forensically collect social network profiles and information from social networking platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
• Preserve social media posts for use in civil litigation in state and federal court,
• Analyze the social media posts and meta-data and network relationships for the various social media platforms,
• Provide expert reports and/or affidavits of the results of the forensic analysis for use in civil litigation in state and federal court.

IST Discover-E is your single source for superior collections, processing and review services. We understand the needs of our clients and consistently deliver customized, legally admissible forensic data collections that go hand in hand with our expert data processing and review services.