Cloud Forensics: Challenges and Solutions (Blockchain Based Solutions)
Abstract
Abstract Views: 414Cloud computing is an on-demand service provided for computer resources, data storage and enhancing computing power. Digital forensics is used to help forensic investigators extract evidence against cloud/ cybercriminals and maintain the integrity and security of data stored in a cloud environment. Based on the prior research in this area concerning existing challenges and solutions, this survey focuses on exploring the problems and their proposed solutions on the basis of a detailed literature survey. It critically explores and reviews the prevailing challenges and solutions through an in-depth review of the cloud forensic area. The paper highlights all the current problems in cloud forensics and their solutions previously identified by the researchers to help investigators probe any criminal incident. The three categorization model explores the challenges and solutions of the existing methods and offers directions for future research in this area. Finally, this survey paper can be considered an initiative to carry out research and develop cloud forensic-able services for the cloud environment.
INDEX TERMS: blockchain based solution, cloud forensics, cloud forensics challenges, cloud forensics methodologies, cloud forensics solutions
Downloads
References
L. Columbus, ( 2021),32% Of IT Budgets Will Be Dedicated To The Cloud By 2021.https://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2020/08/02/32-of-it-budgets-will-be-dedicated-to-the-cloud-by-2021/?sh=2ac247545fe3(accessed Jul. 07, 2021)
McAfee,(2021),Economic Impact of Cybercrime Report.https://www.mcafee.com/enterprise/en-us/solutions/lp/economics-cybercrime.html(accessed Jul. 07, 2021).
M. Herman, M. Iorga, A. M. Salim, R. H. Jackson, M. R. Hurst, R. Leo, et al., "NIST Cloud Computing Forensic Science Challenges," National Institute of Standards and Technology, pp. 10-70, 2020. https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.IR.8006
R. McKemmish, What is forensic computing?: Australian Institute of Criminology Canberra, 1999.
J. Robert,(2021),“60 Percent of Small Companies Close Within 6 Months of Being Hacked.” https://cybersecurityventures.com/60-percent-of-small-companies-close-within-6-months-of-being-hacked/(accessed Jul. 07, 2021).
J. C.-L. Goh, S. L. Pan, and M. Zuo, "Developing the agile IS development practices in large-scale IT projects: The trust-mediated organizational controls and IT project team capabilities perspectives," Journal of the Association for Information Systems, vol. 14, p. 1,2013.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2008.01.006
V. S. Harichandran, F. Breitinger, I. Baggili, and A. Marrington, "A cyber forensics needs analysis survey: Revisiting the domain's needs a decade later," Computers & Security, vol. 57, pp. 1-13, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cose.2015.10.007
S. Zawoad, A. K. Dutta, and R. Hasan, "SecLaaS: secure logging-as-a-service for cloud forensics," in Proceedings of the 8th ACM SIGSAC symposium on Information, computer and communications security, 2013, pp. 219-230. https://doi.org/10.1145/2484313.2484342
T. Sang, "A log based approach to make digital forensics easier on cloud computing," in 2013 Third International Conference on Intelligent System Design and Engineering Applications, 2013, pp. 91-94.https://doi.org/10.1109/ISDEA.2012.29
P.M. Trenwith and H. S. Venter, "Digital forensic readiness in the cloud," in 2013 Information Security for South Africa, 2013, pp. 1-5. https://doi.org/0.1109/ISSA.2013.6641055
A. Pătraşcu and V.-V. Patriciu, "Logging framework for cloud computing forensic environments," in 2014 10th International Conference on Communications (COMM), 2014, pp. 1-4. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICComm.2014.6866662
M. Damshenas, A. Dehghantanha, R. Mahmoud, and S. bin Shamsuddin, "Forensics investigation challenges in cloud computing environments," in Proceedings Title: 2012 International Conference on Cyber Security, Cyber Warfare and Digital Forensic (CyberSec), 2012, pp. 190-194.
D. Birk and C. Wegener, "Technical issues of forensic Cloud Forensics:Challenges and Solutions...24Innovative Computing ReviewVolume 1 Issue 2, Winter2021investigations in cloud computing environments," in 2011 Sixth IEEE international workshop on systematic approaches to digital forensic engineering, 2011, pp. 1-10.
S. Zawoad and R. Hasan, "Cloud forensics: a meta-study of challenges, approaches, and open problems," arXiv preprint arXiv:1302.6312, 2013.
A. Haeberlen, "A case for the accountable cloud," ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review, vol. 44, pp. 52-57, 2010. https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/1773912.1773926
K. Ruan, J. Carthy, T. Kechadi, and M. Crosbie, “Cloud Forensics,” in Advances in Digital Forensics VII, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2011, pp. 35–46. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-24212-0_3.
“Cloud SLAs: present and future: ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review: Vol 46, No 2.” https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/2331576.2331586 (accessed Jul. 07, 2021).
A. H. Busalim, A. R. C. Hussin, and A. Ibrahim, “Service level agreement framework for e-commerce cloud end-user perspective,” in 2013 International Conference on Research and Innovation in Information Systems (ICRIIS), Nov. 2013, pp. 576–581. doi: 10.1109/ICRIIS.2013.6716773.
R. Hegarty, M. Merabti, Q. Shi, and B. Askwith, “found in Distributed Service Orientated Computing.”
Y. Shi, K. Zhang, and Q. Li, “A New Data Integrity Verification Mechanism for SaaS,” in Web Information Systems and Mining, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2010, pp. 236–243. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-16515-3_30.
L. Zhou, V. Varadharajan, and M. Hitchens, “Achieving Secure Role-Based Access Control on Encrypted Data in Cloud Storage,” IEEE Trans. Inf. Forensics Secur., vol. 8, no. 12, pp. 1947–1960, Dec. 2013, doi: 10.1109/TIFS.2013.2286456.
K. Yang, X. Jia, K. Ren, B. Zhang, and R. Xie, “DAC-MACS: Effective Data
Kaleem25School of Systems and TechnologyVolume 1 Issue 2, Winter 2021Access Control for Multiauthority Cloud Storage Systems,” IEEE Trans. Inf. Forensics Secur., vol. 8, no. 11, pp. 1790–1801, Nov. 2013, doi: 10.1109/TIFS.2013.2279531.
“Calm Before the Storm: The Challenges of Cloud Computing in Digital Forensics: Security & Forensics Journal Article | IGI Global.” https://www.igi-global.com/article/calm-before-storm/68408 (accessed Jul. 07, 2021).
G. Sibiya, H. S. Venter, and T. Fogwill, Digital forensic framework for a cloud environment. International Information Management Corporation (IIMC), 2012. Accessed: Jul. 07, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://researchspace.csir.co.za/dspace/handle/10204/5890
A. Juels and B. S. Kaliski, “Pors: proofs of retrievability for large files,” in Proceedings of the 14th ACM conference on Computer and communications security, New York, NY, USA, Oct. 2007, pp. 584–597. doi: 10.1145/1315245.1315317.
J. Dykstra and A. T. Sherman, “Acquiring forensic evidence from infrastructure-as-a-service cloud computing: Exploring and evaluating tools, trust, and techniques,” Digit. Investig., vol. 9, pp. S90–S98, Aug. 2012, doi: 10.1016/j.diin.2012.05.001.
D.-Y. Kao, “Cybercrime investigation countermeasure using created-accessed-modified model in cloud computing environments,” J. Supercomput., vol. 72, no. 1, pp. 141–160, Jan. 2016, doi: 10.1007/s11227-015-1516-7.
Z. Wan, J. Liu, and R. H. Deng, “HASBE: A Hierarchical Attribute-Based Solution for Flexible and Scalable Access Control in Cloud Computing,” IEEE Trans. Inf. Forensics Secur., vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 743–754, Apr. 2012, doi: 10.1109/TIFS.2011.2172209.
“hjp: doc: RFC 5905: Network Time Protocol Version 4: Protocol and Algorithms Specification.” https://www.hjp.at/doc/rfc/rfc5905.html (accessed Jul. 07, 2021).
“Legal Process and Requirements for Cloud Forensic Investigations: Security & Forensics Book Chapter | IGI Global.” https://www.igi-global.com/chapter/legal-process-requirements-cloud-forensic/73963 (accessed Jul. 07, 2021).
S. D. Wolthusen, “Overcast: Forensic Discovery in Cloud Environments,” in 2009 Fifth International Conference on IT Security Incident Management and IT Forensics, Sep. 2009, pp. 3–9. doi: 10.1109/IMF.2009.21.
J. H. Park, J. Y. Park, and E. N. Huh, “Block Chain Based Data Logging and Integrity Management System for Cloud Forensics,” in Computer Science & Information Technology (CS & IT), Sep.2017, pp. 149–159. doi: 10.5121/csit.2017.71112.
“Public Auditing of Log Integrity for Cloud Storage Systems via Blockchain | SpringerLink.” https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-21373-2_29 (accessed Jul. 08, 2021).
“Merkle tree,” Wikipedia. Jul. 01, 2021. Accessed: Jul. 08, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Merkle_tree&oldid=1031389060
M. Pourvahab and G. Ekbatanifard, “Digital Forensics Architecture for Evidence Collection and Provenance Preservation in IaaS Cloud Environment Using SDN and Blockchain Technology,” IEEE Access, vol. 7, pp. 153349–153364, 2019, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2946978.
Copyright (c) 2021 Hassan Kaleem
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.