Abstract:
Today, the Internet has evolved into an indispensable piece of our daily
lifestyles through its various applications such as healthcare to education, businesses
to research, and entertainment. Nowadays, one of the paramount drawbacks of this
technology is the lack or absence of security. An intruder can potentially tap into the
digital systems through its communications which may lead to an inflated figure in
cybercriminal activities. Web browsers are the to-go applications while using the
internet and like every other application, internet browsers alike need to be kept in
check for making sure that are doing the intended work and patch any insecurity
regularly. However, these extensive updates to the applications and the operating
systems may prove a hurdle for the investigators to perform the investigation process.
This study provides an investigative methodology for obtaining and analyzing the
updated browsers' artifacts from various regions of operating systems. For this, In this
study, we have targeted the latest Microsoft Windows 11 Operating System with our
proposed Browser Lifecycle investigation approach for the (three topmost browsers)
Firefox, Chrome, and Edge. We have identified and collected the artifacts for
analyzing the browsing activities that were performed through the complete stages of
the browser's lifecycle. We examined installations, execution, and anomaly behaviors
like crashes, restarting, and uninstallations with targeted evidence from the registry,
memory, storage, and logs locations. Through experiments, we also highlighted the
possibilities to fetch considerable details of the user’s internet browsing activities.
Moreover, the experiments highlighted that the crashes and unexpected closures of the
browser reveal sensitive information that might be lost during the usual closure of the
applications. The proposed methodology with its promising identified results can
provide a strong basis for expanding knowledge in the domain of browser forensic
analysis. Further, the proposed methodology can also enhance the effectiveness of
cybercriminal investigations in the forensics domain.
