The increasing prevalence of Internet of Things (IoT) devices has introduced significant challenges in digital forensic investigations, requiring new strategies for effective evidence prioritization and analysis. Traditional forensic methods struggle with data heterogeneity, volatility, and legal constraints, making IoT evidence collection complex and time-sensitive. This paper presents a weighted prioritization model (WPM) that ranks IoT devices based on six forensic criteria, enabling investigators to focus on highpriority evidence first, reducing data loss and optimizing forensic workflows. Through case studies in arson, homicide, and missing person investigations, we demonstrate how WPM enhances investigative decisionmaking and resource allocation in real-world forensic scenarios. The proposed framework offers a structured, scalable, and adaptable approach to IoT forensic investigations, improving efficiency, reliability, and legal compliance in digital evidence collection.
more »
« less
How Do I Share My IoT Forensic Experience With the Broader Community? An Automated Knowledge Sharing IoT Forensic Platform
- Award ID(s):
- 1736209
- PAR ID:
- 10134326
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- IEEE Internet of Things Journal
- Volume:
- 6
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 2372-2541
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 6850 to 6861
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
The constant and rapid evolution of technology has led to some amazing achievements. Normal people can communicate with others across the globe, relatively cheap Internet of Things (IoT) devices can be used to secure homes, track fitness and health, control appliances, etc., many people have access to a seemingly endless wealth of information in small devices in their pockets, organizations can provide high availability for important services by spinning up/down servers in minutes to scale with demand through cloud services, etc. However, not everyone who uses these technologies does so with a pure heart and good intentions, many people use them to commit or help commit crimes. A nefarious individual may use cloud services to host a highly available Command and Control (C2) server, a messaging app to form and communicate with a gang or hacking group, or IoT devices as part of a botnet designed to perform Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. When these technologies are used in the commission of a crime, they hold valuable information that needs to be recovered forensically to use as evidence to convict the perpetrators. Unfortunately, that ever-evolving technology poses many challenges for digital forensics. This paper identifies and presents many of the challenges faced in digital forensics involving mobile devices, IoT devices, and cloud services in addition to proposing a framework for solving the IoT Forensic Data Analysis problem.more » « less
An official website of the United States government

