Digital forensic application requirements specification process

Abstract

The requirements to identify the cause of an incident, following the trail of events preceding the incident, as well as proving the consistency of the potential evidence recovered from the alleged incident, ultimately demand a proactive approach towards the design of digital forensics (DF) applications. Success in the use of digital evidence for analysis or validation in digital forensic investigations depends on established processes, scientific methods, guidelines and standards that are used in the DF application designs and developments.Adding legal and scientific processes capable of absorbing the constant upgrades and updates in the design of DF applications is a boost to the already existing DF processes and standards. However, there is need for such processes to be clearly defined, so that non-technical audience involved in crime investigations and decisions, can easily comprehend the DF application designs and development processes.To proactively overcome this challenge, this paper proposes the digital forensic application requirements specifications (DFARS) process. The proposed DFARS process outlines an easy-to-apply design process for designing any DF application. It further demonstrates in a case scenario, how to apply the DFARS process using the online neighbourhood watch (ONW) system. The ONW system is a DF application that crowd-source potential digital evidence (PDE). One of the objectives of the ONW system is to increase the volume of available PDE to enhance success in prosecution of neighbourhood crime.Therefore using the DFARS process with the ONW system as a case scenario, the result shows that the DFARS process ensures an easy application of modifiability, pluggability and reliability features at any point in the life-cycle of a DF application. This thereby accommodates the constant upgrades and changes associated with electronic devices, operating systems, hardware and other requirements. It further shows an easy-to-follow process that is understandable to both technical and non-technical audiences in the field of digital forensics.

Conceptual Model for Crowd-Sourcing Digital Forensic Evidence

“…Digital forensic science is drawn from the traditional science of forensics developed in conjunction with the biological sciences and has undergone a continuous growth that encompasses all digital devices [7] [8] [9][10] [11]. It mainly emerged from forensic science, which is a larger body of knowledge in which science is used to solve crime [12] [13] [14].…”

“…Organizations have employed the use of crowdsourcing to share and publish research, especially when the organization sourcing out the skills do not possess the relevant resources or skills required to solve a specific research problem [8][25][24] [23]. Furthermore, some crowdsource endeavours require a situation where the potential problem-solvers receive financial incentives.…”

A Framework for Concurrent Contact-Tracing and Digital Evidence Analysis in Heterogeneous Environments

“…Digital forensic science is drawn from the traditional science of forensics developed in conjunction with the biological sciences and has undergone a continuous growth that encompasses all digital devices [ 7 – 10 ]. Digital forensics has been defined as the use of “scientifically derived and proven mathematical methods toward the preservation, collection, validation, identification, analysis, interpretation, documentation and proper expertise witness presentation of digital evidence, derived from digital sources for the purpose of facilitating or furthering the reconstruction of events found to be criminal”, or helping to anticipate unauthorised actions” [ 11 ] [ 7 ]. Generally, digital forensics provides a means to aid the preclusion of criminal related offences using digital devices.…”

Murder, She Modeled: Modeling to Support Crimino-Forensic Processes

“…Several attempts toward this direction can be found in the literature. For example, Omeleze and Venter [18] proposed a "digital forensic application requirements specification (DFARS) process" as a first step toward developing an effective application of this sort. Pasquale et al [20] worked on digital forensics, emphasizing its difference from 'offline' forensics, and proposing an adaptive security approach, whose adaptation depends on suspicious events and investigation findings.…”