Sickly Apps: A Forensic Analysis of Medical Device Smartphone Applications on Android and iOS Devices

Smartphone devices are increasingly being integrated into a variety of medical settings. An emerging trend is the development of smartphone applications that interact with medical devices connected to the Internet. While this fusion of technology can provide various benefits for both patients and medical professionals, there are concerns that these devices could become targets for cybercriminals. Therefore, a digital forensic investigation of these medical devices could be needed. However, researchers have suggested that the investigation of medical devices is unlikely to be straightforward, and that conventional forensic evidence acquisition might not be possible. Hence, this paper proposes that smartphone applications, which interact with medical devices, could provide an alternative source of digital evidence when investigating the device itself. The research contribution is twofold. First, the paper presents an empirical investigation to using residual data recovered from medical smartphone applications, as a means for forensically examining medical devices. Second, the paper documents the forensic artifacts that are generated by specific medical device smartphone applications on Android and iOS smartphones.