Cloud Services
Forensic investigation have become complicated with the changes in technology and rise of innovation and thus there is need to incorporate technology in forensic to achieve digitals forensic such as using cloud services that will have an immense impact on investigation operation. Digital forensic that incorporates cloud services will be vital in improving investigation through exchange and preservation of data by forensic professionals making it possible to complete investigation with expedition. It is vital to not that forensic investigations has for a long time experienced challenges and barriers towards the investigations. The different challenges and barriers experienced by the forensic investigators include computer hardware issues that pose the risk of losing data, software challenges in cybercrime investigation, legal issues, identity theft and the inability to gather data from different point and store them in a centralized location for the investigators. The different challenges makes it impossible to have conduct coordinated and comprehensive investigation and thus incorporating cloud services will improve the management of criminal data in the interest of the criminal investigation. The adoption of cloud services in forensic investigations will make it possible to achieve digital forensics that manages forensic data from different investigations thus making it possible to achieve the forensic goals.
Impact of changes in technology on the field of digital forensics
Changes in technology have resulted to significant impacts in digital forensics and thus there is need to adopt the appropriate measures to counter the undesirable effects that come with technological changes (Quick and Choo, 2014).The changes of technology in digital forensic have resulted to changes in the modern law enforcement such that law enforcement agencies have increasingly increased the closure and efficiency rates. It is important to note that, there has been rise in technical and mobile society thus resulting to tremendous growth in digital forensic. The changes in technology have made the investigators work to be effective and eliminated the challenges /barriers forensic investigation. The berries in forensic investigations have been consistently reduced with technology thus streamlining operation making it easy and effective to conduct investigations and close them. For instance FBI records shows that case leads have decreased with the incorporation of digital examination. In this regard, in 2012 FBI had 13,330 cases but the lead was reduce to 6500 cases in 2003 due to the adoption of technology in form of digital investigations.
The changes in technology experienced in digital forensics have increased the capacity of the law enforcement agencies to track criminals and Help victims. The increased technology makes it possible to analyze evidences thus introducing links to between criminals and their crime thus making it possible to solve cases (Quick and Choo, 2014). In most cases, cyber-crimes have been increasingly solved with chances in technology in digital forensics. In cybercrimes criminals leave digital footprints of their activities thus making it possible to track and catch up with them. For instance, changes in technology have made it possible for the tracking and Helping victims of child pornography. The widespread use of personal computers has increased cases of child trafficking and pornography making it difficult to track and convict the criminals. The internet has further increased and facilitated the distribution of child pornography content. However, changes in technology have increased digital forensic techniques and approaches that have effectively made it possible to track and arrest criminals involved with child trafficking and pornography.
The changes in technology have contributed to reduction of online fraud through the increase of digital forensic tools (Daryabar et al., 2013). Online fraud gained great presence in public consciousness and it was characterized with banking crimes and corporate insurance fraud, securities and commodities fraud and identity fraud thus overwhelming the police. Online fraud topped as the most common complaint made to the internet crime complaint center. However, changes in technology have increased digital tools that enhance fast and reliable data and information acquisitions and analysis to track and convict cyber criminals thus reducing the cyber fraud related cases.
Cloud services impact the field of digital forensics
Cloud services have positively impacted the digital forensic fiend in the course of evidence and data management. First, cloud services have contributed to the preservation of evidence and data in the interest of investigations (O’shaughnessy and Keane, 2013). In this case, data is stored remotely thus ensuring that it is not interfered or compromised by malicious parties to the investigation. The process of acquiring data from a cloud service provider is done by ser4ving them with a court order thus ensuring that such evidence can only be available to the right parties thus effectively preserving it.
Cloud services in the digital forensic enhance the conduct of surveys by the identification of evidences pieces and thus developing a relevant theory to the incident. The cloud services enhance the storage and preservation of fragile pieces of evidence such as such as evidence collected immediately after an incident and volatile memory for the investigations process (O’shaughnessy and Keane, 2013). Under the cloud services the investigator is able to identify potential evidence using the platform as a service (PaaS0, infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and software as a service (SaaS). Under the IaaS model most evidence is available to the investigator since the customer is able to control the se- up of virtual instances, applications and operating systems. PaaS model the customer is able to develop and deploy applications developed using programming languages, services, libraries and tools supported by the provider. However the customer is not able to control and, manage the underlying infrastructure.
Cloud services in the digital forensic enables the investigators to conduct a search and collection of the evidence and relevant data in regard to their case. The search and collection processes involve the thorough analysis and Assessment of the system for digital evidence (O’shaughnessy and Keane, 2013). In this regard, there are different analysis methods that can be adopted. The investigator needs to know the location and arrangement of data in the cloud environment to ensure that they have the sufficient, data and evidences to present before the other levels of criminal justice system. Therefore, the fact that cloud services stores all the collected evidence of different case enables the investigator to locate them without much efforts for the conviction of the criminals.
Describe how a forensic analysis will be different than one where you are only dealing with devices that you have full control over.
There are differences in the conduct of forensic analysis when compared to the situation one is already holding devices that one has control over. First, the situation presents the difference in the scope and extent of investigation (Sammons, 2012). In forensic investigation the investigator will go for any probable lead to the investigation with the intention of collecting enough evidence for the crimes under investigation. On the other hand, in the case the investigator have devices they have control over then they will exhaustively conduct investigations on the devices to retrieve the relevant evidence and data for their cases. In this case, the investigators works on the devices and exploit the different leads to collect sufficient evidences and data for their cases. Consequently, the circumstances presented develop different levels and processes to access of evidence and data. In the case one is conducting forensic analysis they will have to liaise with external parties and seek approvals in accessing additional evidence to ensure that the analysis process is complete. On the other hand, when investigators have devices they have full control then will not have to seek permission and approvals in the course of analyzing them. In this case, they go straight to retrieving the evidence and data and conducting the relevant analysis.
Major details and methods
There different issues and details that affect the digital forensic that has incorporates the cloud services technology. The multi-tenancy aspect of cloud services allows several clients to share physical server and use services provided by similar computing hardware and software simultaneously. This approach to access cloud services pose challenges of compromising investigators operations as they operate sensitive data.
There are the details of data provenances that are dependent of the cloud service model used in the operations. Data provenances entail the recording of data ownership and the processing of data history and this aspect is vital in digital forensic investigation. In this regard, the investigators need to adopt the relevant models and effective storage management techniques.
Conclusion
The field of forensic investigation has consistently changes due to changes in technology and innovations and thus there is need to adopt digital forensics in full force to counter the challenges and barriers associated with traditional forensic investigations. The technological changes has resulted to positive changes in digital forensics by ensuring that evidence and crime data is effectively collected and sufficiently analyzed to convict criminals and close cases. Additionally, cloud services have improved the handling and overall management of digital criminal evidences to ensure that crimes are prosecuted with speed and certainty thus ensuring that criminals are deterred thus preventing crimes.
References
Daryabar, F., Dehghantanha, A., Udzir, N. I., Sani, N. F. B. M., Shamsuddin, S., & Norouzizadeh, F. (2013). A survey about impacts of cloud computing on digital forensics. International Journal of Cyber-Security and Digital Forensics, 2(2), 77-94.
O’shaughnessy, S., & Keane, A. (2013, January). Impact of cloud computing on digital forensic investigations. In Ifip international conference on digital forensics (pp. 291-303). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Quick, D., & Choo, K. K. R. (2014). Impacts of increasing volume of digital forensic data: A survey and future research challenges. Digital Investigation, 11(4), 273-294.
Sammons, J. (2012). The basics of digital forensics: the primer for getting started in digital forensics. Elsevier.

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