Cloud forensics is the application of digital forensics techniques to investigate crimes or security incidents that involve cloud storage or cloud computing services. As more and more businesses move their data and operations to the cloud, cloud forensics is becoming an increasingly important skill for law enforcement, devsecops folk, cybersecurity professionals, and IT investigators. It may involve IaaS (e.g. AWS) or SaaS (e.g. Office 365).
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Cloud-based forensics investigations typically involve the following steps:
- Identification: Identifying the cloud service(s) that were used and the data that may be relevant to the investigation.
- Preservation: Preserving the cloud data in a way that meets legal requirements and ensures its integrity.
- Collection: Collecting the relevant data from the cloud service(s).
- Analysis: Analyzing the collected data to find evidence of the crime or security incident.
- Reporting: Reporting the findings of the investigation in a way that is admissible in court - although most attacks in the cloud won't end up in court.
Digital forensics in the cloud
Digital forensics in the cloud presents a number of challenges that are not typically encountered in traditional on-premises investigations. These challenges include:
- Data fragmentation: Cloud data is often stored in multiple data centers around the world, which can make it difficult to collect and analyze all of the relevant data.
- Legal issues: The laws governing the collection and preservation of cloud data can be complex and vary depending on the jurisdiction.
- Volatility: Cloud data is often dynamic and can be quickly deleted or overwritten, making it important to act quickly to preserve evidence.
- Digital forensics cloud computing
Despite these challenges, cloud forensics is a powerful tool for investigating crimes and security incidents in the cloud. With the right tools and techniques, investigators can collect and analyze evidence from the cloud to help bring criminals to justice and protect businesses from cyberattacks.
Cloud storage forensics
Cloud storage forensics is the process of collecting and analyzing evidence from cloud storage services such as Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive. Cloud storage forensics can be used to investigate a variety of crimes, including data breaches, identity theft, and fraud. These are your more typical SaaS applications.