Cloud Storage Forensics

To reduce the risk of digital forensic evidence being called into question in judicial proceedings, it is important to have a rigorous methodology and set of procedures for conducting digital forensic investigations and examinations. Digital forensic investigation in the cloud computing environment, however, is in infancy due to the comparatively recent prevalence of cloud computing. Cloud Storage Forensics presents the first evidence-based cloud forensic framework, which gives you the proper methodology and tools for conducting successful cloud storage forensics investigations. Authors Raymond Choo, Darren Quick, and Ben Martini have developed their framework at the Information Assurance Research Group through years of case study and field work with cloud storage and client services. Now you can benefit from the results of their research, applying these methods to your own cases and investigations. Using three popular cloud storage services and one private cloud storage service as case studies, the authors show you how their framework can be used to undertake research into the data remnants on both cloud storage servers and client devices when a user undertakes a variety of methods to store, upload, and access data in the cloud. By determining the data remnants on client devices, you gain a better understanding of the types of terrestrial artifacts that are likely to remain at the Identification stage of an investigation. Once it is determined that a cloud storage service account has potential evidence of relevance to an investigation, you can communicate this to legal liaison points within service providers to enable them to respond and secure evidence in a timely manner. You can learn to use the methodology and tools from the first evidenced-based cloud forensic framework. It contains case studies that provide detailed tools for analysis of cloud storage devices using popular cloud storage services. It includes coverage of the legal implications of cloud storage forensic investigations. It presents discussion of the future evolution of cloud storage and its impact on digital forensics.