A novel approach for incident response in cloud using forensics

Abstract

Cloud Computing is a technology which can take distributed and high performance computing to the next level. The concept of distributed virtualization enables cloud service providers to ensure better service availability along with optimal utilization of resources. Users, on the other hand get benefited in terms of cost reduction, less maintenance overheads, rapid provision and release of resources with minimal service provider interaction. However, lack of transparency and security procedures in place is reducing the maximal usage of cloud services. These issues can be better addressed by facilitating digital forensics in cloud which involves lot of challenges. The main concern is lack of trust in cloud. Any security mechanism may get violated at some point of time and this can lead to the reputation loss for the cloud service provider (CSP). The CSP then has to rebuild the trust by effective incident management. One of the challenges in incident handling (IH) is detecting the incidents in a timely manner and identifying the intruder. In this paper, we are proposing a framework for the same.