The challenges of cloud forensics

Digital forensics is typically used to investigate cybercrimes by gathering evidence from various sources. Cloud computing has increasingly become one of the primary sources of digital services and storing data, therefore, a potential source of evidence for criminal activities. Cloud Forensics merges all the benefits of traditional digital forensics with the challenges of cloud computing, one of them being the location where the data is hosted. A high percentage of financial and fraud crimes will leave a trace in the digital world and tend to be resolved using the digital forensics investigation process. This paper focuses on cloud forensics challenges in relation to cloud architecture and sources of evidence. It introduces a framework formulated and evaluated on the basis of applying qualitative methods, unlike other techniques and forensics tools that image the content of the cloud resources and analyse them separately. This paper provides suitable recommendations through critical analysis and evaluation to interested stakeholders.