Cloud Forensics Issues and Opportunities

Abstract

Cloud computing technology is a rapidly growing field of study, which relies on sharing computing resources rather than having local servers or personal devices to handle applications. Most of the growth in this field is due to transfer of the traditional model of IT services to a novel model of cloud and the ubiquity of access to electronic and digital devices. Cloud computing posed a critical risk and challenges to digital investigators, but provides plenty of opportunities to investigators for improving the digital forensics. Moreover, cloud service providers and customers have yet to establish adequate forensic capabilities that could support investigations of criminal activities in the cloud. Notwithstanding the cloud presents some promising technical and economic benefits, users still resist to use cloud mainly due to security issues because it poses a challenge in doing cloud forensic investigations. Regarding this some research has been done, which propose solutions in doing forensic investigation. In this review paper, we take the first step towards reviewing the cloud forensics works that have been done by other researchers, and then do some discussion and analysis based on our findings to consider the opportunities and challenges confront the cloud forensics based on our findings.

Trust Management in the World of Cloud Computing. Past Trends and Some New Directions

“…In this study we identified one major direction that would serve as a roadmap for creating trusted cloud environment. As we have seen that cloud-based services have increasingly gained much popularity, yet there is a lack in the tools that allow cloud consumers to verify that these services perform as expected [87] [88] [89]. Dykstra et al [90] for the first time provided an evaluation model for some cloud-forensic acquisition tools that aids in providing confidences in the acquired evidences.…”

The State of the Art Forensic Techniques in Mobile Cloud Environment

“…There are no forensic capabilities between the cloud service providers and customers that could assist investigations of illegal activities in the cloud (Ruan, Carthy, & T. Kechadi M. Crosbie, 2011). (Ruan K., Carthy, Kechadi, & Baggili, 2013) and (Aminnezhad, Dehghantanha, Abdullah, & ohsen Damshenas, 2013)[24] discusses the fundamental challenges of cloud forensics and (Dykstra & A. Sherman, Understanding issues in cloud forensics: Two hypothetical case studies, 2011) describe the cloud forensics challenges using two hypothetical cloud crimes. The storage services of cloud include Dropbox, box, and SugarSync.…”