BrowStExPlus: A Tool to Aggregate Indexed DB Artifacts for Forensic Analysis

As the Internet and World Wide Web have rapidly evolved and revolutionized the applications in everyday life, it is ademanding challenge for investigators to keep up with the emerging technologies for forensic analyses. Investigating web browser usages forcriminal activities, also known as web browser forensics, is a significant part of digital forensics as crucial browsing information of the suspectcan be discovered. Particularly, in this study, an emerging web storage technology, called IndexedDB, is examined. Characteristics of Index-edDB technology in five major web browsers under three major operating systems are scrutinized. Also, top 15 US websites ranked by Alexaare investigated for their data storage in IndexedDB. User screen names, ids, and records of conversations, permissions, and image locationsare some of the data found in IndexedDB. Furthermore, BrowStEx, a proof-of-concept tool previously developed, is extended and cultivatedinto BrowStExPlus, with which aggregating IndexedDB artifacts is demonstrated.