Using Mobile Forensics to Investigate the Dark Side of Gaming Chat Applications

• In Event: Poster Session

Abstract

The current study investigates the dark side of using gaming chat applications such as Discord, Mumble, and Team Speak for illegal activities like selling credentials, stolen credit cards, private data, sexual exploitation, and organizing groups on white supremacy. With the shutdown of many Darknet websites, Facebook groups, and illegal marketplaces, criminals are now switching over to chat platforms that allow them to resume their operations easily and quickly. Such communities can be also utilized for recruitment and providing instructions how to commit crime to individuals anywhere in the world. We leverage social learning theory to explain how crime is learned through interactions on these applications. Our next steps are to demonstrate how data can be extracted from gaming chat applications using digital forensic techniques. The goals of the current study are to explore further these emerging new platforms, and to provide law enforcement with effective and efficient tools for investigating data generated on gaming chat platforms.

Author

• Miloslava Plachkinova, Kennesaw State University