An Overview of Cloud Forensics Strategy: Capabilities, Challenges, and Opportunities

Cloud computing has become one of the most game changing technologies in the recent history of computing. It is gaining acceptance and growing in popularity. However, due to its infancy, it encounters challenges in strategy, capabilities, as well as technical, organizational, and legal dimensions. Cloud service providers and customers do not yet have any proper strategy or process that paves the way for a set procedure on how to investigate or go about the issues within the cloud. Due to this gap, they are not able to ensure the robustness and suitability of cloud services in relation to supporting investigations of criminal activity. Moreover, both cloud service providers and customers have not yet established adequate forensic capabilities that could assist investigations of criminal activities in the cloud. The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of the emerging field of cloud forensics and highlight its capabilities, strategy, investigation, challenges, and opportunities. This paper also provides a detailed discussion in relation to strategic planning for cloud forensics.