{"title":"Potential applicability of blockchain technology in the maintenance of chain of custody in forensic casework","authors":"Harsh Patil, Ravshish Kaur Kohli, Sorabh Puri, Pooja Puri","doi":"10.1186/s41935-023-00383-w","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Proper investigation of digital evidence is of prime significance in cyber investigations. From the collection of evidence, its preservation, and its analysis, it is important to maintain its integrity in the legal system due to the involvement of different stakeholders like law enforcement agencies, digital analysts, and the judiciary. This review paper focuses on how blockchain technology can be used to collect evidence efficiently. In the present scenario, the manual logs of the chain of custody are used to ensure that the evidence remains confidential and transparent. It is accompanied by filling out the application forms and maintaining logs within the organization handling the evidence. Hence, it is important to ensure the validity, integrity, and verifiability of evidence as it moves through different hierarchical levels. There are certain issues associated with the current chain of custody, such as evidence loss, theft, tampering, and, even worse, evidence manipulation inside the system. To avoid this situation and to make the process coherent, this review paper aims to highlight the potential use of blockchain technology to preserve chain of custody. Although this scientific technology is mainly used to run cryptocurrencies, with careful consideration and application, this could play a key role in supporting and managing the chain of custody. It is a distributed database that keeps track of blocks. These blocks are collection of entries that keep growing continually and are secured from editing and manipulation by retaining the hash of the previous block in the chain. This is a decentralized technology that is not easily compromised in terms of security and therefore has the potential to solve our problem area. A future research agenda needs to be established, which lays the solid foundation for further studies on this evident emerging area.","PeriodicalId":11507,"journal":{"name":"Egyptian journal of forensic sciences","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-01-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Egyptian journal of forensic sciences","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s41935-023-00383-w","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"MEDICINE, LEGAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Proper investigation of digital evidence is of prime significance in cyber investigations. From the collection of evidence, its preservation, and its analysis, it is important to maintain its integrity in the legal system due to the involvement of different stakeholders like law enforcement agencies, digital analysts, and the judiciary. This review paper focuses on how blockchain technology can be used to collect evidence efficiently. In the present scenario, the manual logs of the chain of custody are used to ensure that the evidence remains confidential and transparent. It is accompanied by filling out the application forms and maintaining logs within the organization handling the evidence. Hence, it is important to ensure the validity, integrity, and verifiability of evidence as it moves through different hierarchical levels. There are certain issues associated with the current chain of custody, such as evidence loss, theft, tampering, and, even worse, evidence manipulation inside the system. To avoid this situation and to make the process coherent, this review paper aims to highlight the potential use of blockchain technology to preserve chain of custody. Although this scientific technology is mainly used to run cryptocurrencies, with careful consideration and application, this could play a key role in supporting and managing the chain of custody. It is a distributed database that keeps track of blocks. These blocks are collection of entries that keep growing continually and are secured from editing and manipulation by retaining the hash of the previous block in the chain. This is a decentralized technology that is not easily compromised in terms of security and therefore has the potential to solve our problem area. A future research agenda needs to be established, which lays the solid foundation for further studies on this evident emerging area.
期刊介绍:
Egyptian Journal of Forensic Sciences, the official publication of The International Association of Law and Forensic Sciences (IALFS), is an open access journal that publishes articles in the forensic sciences, pathology and clinical forensic medicine and its related specialities. The journal carries classic reviews, case studies, original research, hypotheses and learning points, offering critical analysis and scientific appraisal.