Forensic investigation of cross platform massively multiplayer online games: Minecraft as a case study

D C Paul J Taylor; Henry Mwiki; Ali Dehghantanha; Alex Akibini; Kim Kwang Raymond Choo; Mohammad Hammoudeh; Reza Parizi

doi:10.1016/j.scijus.2019.01.005

Forensic investigation of cross platform massively multiplayer online games: Minecraft as a case study

Sci Justice. 2019 May;59(3):337-348. doi: 10.1016/j.scijus.2019.01.005. Epub 2019 Jan 29.

Authors

D C Paul J Taylor¹, Henry Mwiki², Ali Dehghantanha³, Alex Akibini⁴, Kim Kwang Raymond Choo⁵, Mohammad Hammoudeh⁶, Reza Parizi⁷

Affiliations

¹ School of Computing, Science and Engineering, University of Salford, UK. Electronic address: Paul.Taylor_Titan@titan.police.uk.
² School of Computing, Science and Engineering, University of Salford, UK.
³ Cyber Science Lab, School of Computer Science, University of Geulph, Ontario, Canada. Electronic address: Ali@CyberScienceLab.org.
⁴ Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK. Electronic address: o.a.akinbi@ljmu.ac.uk.
⁵ Department of Information Systems and Cyber Security, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX 78249, USA. Electronic address: raymond.choo@fulbrightmail.org.
⁶ School of Computing, Mathematics and Digital Technology, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. Electronic address: M.Hammoudeh@mmu.ac.uk.
⁷ Kennesaw State University, Marietta, GA, USA. Electronic address: rparizi1@kennesaw.edu.

PMID: 31054823
DOI: 10.1016/j.scijus.2019.01.005

Abstract

Minecraft, a Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG), has reportedly millions of players from different age groups worldwide. With Minecraft being so popular, particularly with younger audiences, it is no surprise that the interactive nature of Minecraft has facilitated the commission of criminal activities such as denial of service attacks against gamers, cyberbullying, swatting, sexual communication, and online child grooming. In this research, there is a simulated scenario of a typical Minecraft setting, using a Linux Ubuntu 16.04.3 machine (acting as the MMOG server) and Windows client devices running Minecraft. Server and client devices are then examined to reveal the type and extent of evidential artefacts that can be extracted.

Keywords: Game forensics; MMOG forensics; Massively multiplayer online games (MMOG); Minecraft forensics.