Mobile Device Digital Forensics for Supporting Cybercrime Investigation and Evidence Presentation

Abstract

Smartphones have become indispensable tools in modern life, integrating communication, financial transactions, cloud storage, and social networking. This ubiquity has also made them high-value targets for cybercrime. Mobile forensics is the discipline responsible for acquiring, analyzing, and presenting digital evidence from smartphones in a forensically sound manner. This study provides a comparative analysis of logical, file system, and physical acquisition techniques through simulated case experiments on Android and iOS devices. A qualitative approach was used, employing tools such as Cellebrite UFED, Oxygen Forensic Suite, Magnet AXIOM, and Autopsy. Findings indicate that logical acquisition offers efficiency but limited scope, file system acquisition recovers broader application data, and physical acquisition achieves the most comprehensive recovery, including deleted artifacts. Experiments revealed recovery rates of 68%–96% across devices. The study also highlights contemporary challenges, such as end-to-end encryption, cloud synchronization, and anti-forensic strategies, which increasingly hinder evidence extraction. Recent literature further emphasizes the integration of artificial intelligence to accelerate analysis and enhance evidence classification. This research concludes that mobile forensics plays a critical role in criminal investigations, ensuring the integrity and admissibility of digital evidence. Future directions include AI-driven forensic triage, blockchain-based chain of custody, and harmonization of international legal frameworks to improve cross-border evidence handling.