Evaluation of smartphone data using a reference architecture

The 21st century is continuously witnessing the growth and evolution of smartphone technology. Central to this evolution is the use of popular smartphone applications. The frequent use of smartphone applications by people for everyday activities allows for the creation and storage of large quantities of smartphone data. Smartphone data is susceptible to change and can be compromised by anti-forensic tools, malware or malicious users. It is, therefore, important to establish the authenticity of such data before forming any conclusions. The first step to establishing the authenticity of smartphone data is to acquire a better understanding of the expected behaviour of smartphone applications. This paper introduces a reference architecture for smartphone applications, which captures the architectural components and models the expected behaviour of smartphone applications. An experiment conducted to examine the smartphone data of Android's default messaging application indicates that the reference architecture can assist digital forensic professionals in identifying authentic smartphone data.