Digital forensic readiness in the cloud

Abstract

The traditional digital forensic investigation process has always had a post-event driven focus. This process is perhaps too long for the cloud. This paper investigates how digital forensic readiness can be used to quicken and update the traditional digital forensic investigation process to better suit cloud computing environments. John Tans states that centralized logging is the key to efficient forensic strategies. The author proposes a model that considers centralised logging of all activities of all the participants within the cloud in preparation of an investigation. This approach will quicken the acquisition of evidential data when an investigation is required, allowing the investigator to start the analysis and examination almost immediately.