Medical Cyber-Physical Systems Development: A Forensics-Driven Approach

The synthesis of technology and the medical industry has partly contributed to the increasing interest in Medical Cyber-Physical Systems (MCPS). While these systems provide benefits to patients and professionals, they also introduce new attack vectors for malicious actors (e.g. financially-and/or criminally-motivated actors). A successful breach involving a MCPS can impact patient data and system availability. The complexity and operating requirements of a MCPS complicates digital investigations. Coupling this information with the potentially vast amounts of information that a MCPS produces and/or has access to is generating discussions on, not only, how to compromise these systems but, more importantly, how to investigate these systems. The paper proposes the integration of forensics principles and concepts into the design and development of a MCPS to strengthen an organization's investigative posture. The framework sets the foundation for future research in the refinement of specific solutions for MCPS investigations.Comment: This is the pre-print version of a paper presented at the 2nd International Workshop on Security, Privacy, and Trustworthiness in Medical Cyber-Physical Systems (MedSPT 2017

Calm before the storm: the challenges of cloud computing in digital forensics

Cloud computing is a rapidly evolving information technology (IT) phenomenon. Rather than procure, deploy and manage a physical IT infrastructure to host their software applications, organizations are increasingly deploying their infrastructure into remote, virtualized environments, often hosted and managed by third parties. This development has significant implications for digital forensic investigators, equipment vendors, law enforcement, as well as corporate compliance and audit departments (among others). Much of digital forensic practice assumes careful control and management of IT assets (particularly data storage) during the conduct of an investigation. This paper summarises the key aspects of cloud computing and analyses how established digital forensic procedures will be invalidated in this new environment. Several new research challenges addressing this changing context are also identified and discussed

Using smartphones as a proxy for forensic evidence contained in cloud storage services

Cloud storage services such as Dropbox, Box and SugarSync have been embraced by both individuals and organizations. This creates an environment that is potentially conducive to security breaches and malicious activities. The investigation of these cloud environments presents new challenges for the digital forensics community. It is anticipated that smartphone devices will retain data from these storage services. Hence, this research presents a preliminary investigation into the residual artifacts created on an iOS and Android device that has accessed a cloud storage service. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it provides an initial assessment on the extent to which cloud storage data is stored on these client-side devices. This view acts as a proxy for data stored in the cloud. Secondly, it provides documentation on the artifacts that could be useful in a digital forensics investigation of cloud services

A New Framework for Securing, Extracting and Analyzing Big Forensic Data

Finding new methods to investigate criminal activities, behaviors, and responsibilities has always been a challenge for forensic research. Advances in big data, technology, and increased capabilities of smartphones has contributed to the demand for modern techniques of examination. Smartphones are ubiquitous, transformative, and have become a goldmine for forensics research. Given the right tools and research methods investigating agencies can help crack almost any illegal activity using smartphones. This paper focuses on conducting forensic analysis in exposing a terrorist or criminal network and introduces a new Big Forensic Data Framework model where different technologies of Hadoop and EnCase software are combined in an effort to promote more effective and efficient processing of the massive Big Forensic Data. The research propositions this model postulates could lead the investigating agencies to the head of the terrorist networks. Results indicate the Big Forensic Data Framework model is capable of processing Big Forensic Data

A New Framework for Securing, Extracting and Analyzing Big Forensic Data

Finding new methods to investigate criminal activities, behaviors, and responsibilities has always been a challenge for forensic research. Advances in big data, technology, and increased capabilities of smartphones has contributed to the demand for modern techniques of examination. Smartphones are ubiquitous, transformative, and have become a goldmine for forensics research. Given the right tools and research methods investigating agencies can help crack almost any illegal activity using smartphones. This paper focuses on conducting forensic analysis in exposing a terrorist or criminal network and introduces a new Big Forensic Data Framework model where different technologies of Hadoop and EnCase software are combined in an effort to promote more effective and efficient processing of the massive Big Forensic Data. The research propositions this model postulates could lead the investigating agencies to the head of the terrorist networks. Results indicate the Big Forensic Data Framework model is capable of processing Big Forensic Data

D2WFP: A Novel Protocol for Forensically Identifying, Extracting, and Analysing Deep and Dark Web Browsing Activities

The use of the un-indexed web, commonly known as the deep web and dark web, to commit or facilitate criminal activity has drastically increased over the past decade. The dark web is an in-famously dangerous place where all kinds of criminal activities take place [1-2], despite advances in web forensics techniques, tools, and methodologies, few studies have formally tackled the dark and deep web forensics and the technical differences in terms of investigative techniques and artefacts identification and extraction. This research proposes a novel and comprehensive protocol to guide and assist digital forensics professionals in investigating crimes committed on or via the deep and dark web, The protocol named D2WFP establishes a new sequential approach for performing investigative activities by observing the order of volatility and implementing a systemic approach covering all browsing related hives and artefacts which ultimately resulted into improv-ing the accuracy and effectiveness. Rigorous quantitative and qualitative research has been conducted by assessing D2WFP following a scientifically-sound and comprehensive process in different scenarios and the obtained results show an apparent increase in the number of artefacts re-covered when adopting D2WFP which outperform any current industry or opensource browsing forensics tools. The second contribution of D2WFP is the robust formulation of artefact correlation and cross-validation within D2WFP which enables digital forensics professionals to better document and structure their analysis of host-based deep and dark web browsing artefacts