Impact of Factory Reset on Android Devices

The usage of smartphones is increasing day by day compared to other gadgets, and as a result, the devices have become common exhibits in most criminal investigations. Forensic analysis of smart phones is incredibly challenging due to the security features enforced on them. The factory reset facility available in smart phones clears all the user-generated data, including third-party applications, from the internal memory and completely resets the device back to its original state as a new phone. Therefore, evidential artefacts such as contacts, messages, call logs, photos, videos, and documents get deleted from the device memory, and recovery becomes difficult.Forensic acquisition of data remnants from mobile phones after factory reset is of utmost importance to forensic investigators. This paper discusses the impact of factory resets on Android devices and describes in detail the evidential artefacts left behind after the factory reset of Android phones.