Dae-gyu Kim, Chang-soo Kim, Journal of Internet Computing and Services, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 61-70, Apr. 2022
10.7472/jksii.2022.23.2.61, Full Text:  HTML
Keywords: Hidden Vault Application, Anti-forensics, XML, Text Mining, Keyword Frequency Analysis

Abstract

General users who use smartphone apps often use the Vault app to protect personal information such as photos and videos owned by individuals. However, there are increasing cases of criminals using the Vault app function for anti-forensic purposes to hide illegal videos. These apps are one of the apps registered on Google Play. This paper proposes a methodology for extracting feature points through XML-based keyword frequency analysis to explore Vault apps used by criminals, and text mining techniques are applied to extract feature points. In this paper, XML syntax was compared and analyzed using strings.xml files included in the app for 15 hidden Vault anti-forensics apps and non-hidden Vault apps, respectively. In hidden Vault anti-forensics apps, more hidden-related words are found at a higher frequency in the first and second rounds of terminology processing. Unlike most conventional methods of static analysis of APK files from an engineering point of view, this paper is meaningful in that it approached from a humanities and sociological point of view to find a feature of classifying anti-forensics apps. In conclusion, applying text mining techniques through XML parsing can be used as basic data for exploring hidden Vault anti-forensics apps.

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