Forensics Acquisition of IMVU: A Case Study
This addresses a domain-specific problem for digital forensics investigators dealing with IMVU-related crimes, but it is incremental as it applies existing methods to new data.
The paper tackles the challenge of digital forensic acquisition for the IMVU application, which is used by criminals but lacks prior research, by presenting a case study with experimental analysis.
There are many applications available for personal computers and mobile devices that facilitate users in meeting potential partners. There is, however, a risk associated with the level of anonymity on using instant message applications, because there exists the potential for predators to attract and lure vulnerable users. Today Instant Messaging within a Virtual Universe (IMVU) combines custom avatars, chat or instant message (IM), community, content creation, commerce, and anonymity. IMVU is also being exploited by criminals to commit a wide variety of offenses. However, there are very few researches on digital forensic acquisition of IMVU applications. In this paper, we discuss first of all on challenges of IMVU forensics. We present a forensic acquisition of an IMVU 3D application as a case study. We also describe and analyse our experiments with this application.