Cloud Computing Forensic Analysis Research And Challenges Essay

The focus of cloud computing is providing with scalable and a cheap on-demand computing infrastructure with a good quality of service levels. The process of the cloud computing involves a set of network enabled services that can be accessed in a simple and general way. Cloud computing provides with a unique value proposition for any organization to outsource their information and communication technology infrastructure. Moreover, the concept itself provides with a value proposition for an organization as using the cloud saves on cost, resources, and staff, and business opportunities for the organization (Katzan). An extensive connectivity of

Cloud Forensics combines cloud computing and digital forensics. It is concerned with computer forensics with some consideration to network/intrusion forensics. Computer forensic focus on using procedures to create audit trails based on the residing data. Network forensic focus on analyzing network traffic and gathering information by monitoring that traffic to extract or collect information that might be considered a possible evidence. Intrusion forensic is concerned with investigating possible intrusions to computers or networks [4] [5].

Digital Evidence and Computer Crime: Forensic Science, Computers, and the Internet is essentially a guide on how to collect and process digital evidence in any situation. In this book, digital evidence is defined as “any data stored or transmitted using a computer that support or refute a theory of how an offense occurred or that address critical elements of the offense such as intent or alibi” (Casey, 7). Most crimes today have some kind of digital element to them, from the crime itself to the criminal’s use of computer systems to communicate, store incriminating data, or search for ways to commit a crime and this creates new challenges for those in law enforcement (Casey, 3).

The term digital forensics was initially utilized as an equivalent word for computer forensics however has extended to cover examination of all gadgets fit for storing digital data. Digital forensics examinations have a mixture of application. The most widely recognized is to negate a speculation before criminal or courts. The technical part of an examination is separated into a few sub-branches, identifying with the kind of digital gadgets included such as computer forensics, network forensics, forensic data analysis and mobile device forensics. The common forensic procedure incorporates the seizure, measurable forensic imaging and investigation of digital media and the generation of a report into gathered evidence.

Hadoop Cloud Storage has been embraced by both individuals and organizations as it can offer cost-effective, large capacity storage and multi-functional services on a wide range of devices. It is fast raising popularity to access Hadoop Cloud services via Android devices. The widespread usage of Hadoop Cloud Storage could create the environment that is potentially conducive to malicious activities and illegal operations. Thus, the investigation of Hadoop Cloud presents the emerging challenge for digital forensic community. Extracting residual artifacts from the cloud server is potentially difficult due to privacy policies followed by cloud providers.

Data is lost when an adversary cancels a cloud contract and a VM is powered down as a result. Real network and router logs cannot be gathered by the cloud customer for forensic purposes. Evidence is untrustworthy due to the cloud service provider (CSP) involvement in the collection of evidential data. Metadata is lost in the process of evidence gathering and the integrity of evidence data gathered cannot be verified. Another challenge is that evidence gathering has to be timely to prevent an adversary of destroying or modifying data in the time that the law enforcement agency (LEA) has to wait for search warrants due red tape of cross border investigations due to the distributed nature of cloud computing. Due to the elastic resources of cloud computing environments and increasing storage capacity of devices and computer systems, there is really no limit to storage capacity and the investigator is faced with the problem of gathering extremely large volumes of data placed in the cloud by cloud customers. The amount of forensic data to be processed is outgrowing the ability to process the data in a timely manner. The process of the evidence gathering in the cloud computing has become cumbersome and time consuming for the investigator and disruptive for the cloud customer. LEAs are increasingly finding that the data in question are either inaccessible or very difficult to access.

The advances in information and communication technologies have paved way to cloud computing, which is becoming one of the essential social infrastructures. It is a new paradigm for storing data and accessing information and applications which are offered as on-demand services over the Internet infrastructure. It provides new possibilities for business firms as well as governments. In particular, organizations that adopt cloud computing services are expected to gain cost benefits from reduced up-front IT investment, maintenance and lower energy cost (Bose and Luo, 2011); while for the industry as whole, it will benefit from increasing economies of scale and reduction of unutilized capacity (Haag and Eckhardt, 2014). Further cloud computing offers opportunities for innovation realized through lowering entry and expansion cost for firms, especially small and medium enterprises; access high quality services, and fast deployment of product and services. Additional benefits include productivity gains particularly resources efficiency, flexibility and on-demand scalability (Armbrust et al. 2010) as firms concentrate on their core business while accessing high IT quality services from the cloud vendors.

Enterprises, both big and small, are evaluating cloud computing and moving IT infrastructure to the cloud. To achieve the financial goals of the any organization and be prosperous in today’s highly aggressive market; therefore businesses must have services that are secure, reliable, scalable and available anywhere at any given time, on any device – all while it lowers cost and minimizes integration complexity.

Cloud Computing is one of the most popular computing technology. It allows organizations to use resources like hardware, software and IT applications as a service through the internet or web without physically holding these resources internally. So, organization need not worry about the maintenance of these resources. These cloud applications and services can be accessed not only by PCs but also using mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablets (Dutta, Peng, & Choudhary, 2013). Furthermore, this model also provides on demand supply of resources on pay-as-you-go basis. These advantages make cloud computing more popular among other technologies.

Cloud computing is an altering technology which is enjoying increasing rates of adoption. Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources including networks, servers, storage, applications, and services that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. The use of Cloud services is proven effective across diverse set of industries, reducing costs associated with computing while increasing flexibility and scalability for computer processes. For instance, Cloud computing services, like Amazon’s, can be used by all business types and more ideal for smaller businesses or especially ideal for businesses just starting. This report is a recommendation for moving all our company’s data center functions on to the cloud. This report outlines supporting details determining how our company could reap the most benefits by adopting cloud services from any of the high-quality cloud service providers available in the market today such as Amazon, Microsoft, Rackspace, and Verizon Terremark cloud services. The benefits of adoption cloud computing services are substantial including reduced infrastructure costs, increased scalability, availability, capacity, speed, backup and mobility. However, these benefits are not free from possible pitfalls. So, to maximize the benefits and minimize risks associated with the move to the cloud, it is

The improvement of enterprise infrastructure is also an available solution to the major challenges in cloud computing. Enterprises need to develop infrastructure that promotes installation and design of hardware and software components (Tiwari & Mishra, 2012, p.309). These measures should be accompanied with the use of

Enterprises, both big and small, are evaluating cloud computing and moving IT infrastructure to the cloud. To achieve the financial goals of the any organization and be prosperous in today’s highly aggressive market; therefore businesses must have services that are secure, reliable, scalable and available anywhere at any given time, on any device – all while it lowers cost and minimizes integration complexity.

Over the past several years, cloud computing has been getting attention as a new computing model for providing flexible and on-demand infrastructures, platforms, and software as services. Cloud computing is a technology through exchange of information and software management. Cloud computing allows users to use computer technology without the installation in their computers. It allows users to access their files or data from any computer having an internet connection. Cloud computing provides more efficient computing by centralizing data storage, processing and bandwidth. This technology emphases on virtualization of the host server or the controlling computer. The server acts as a communication network through which information could be shared. The information can be stored, retrieved and shared as and when required through a widespread global platform.

In the ever-changing world of business communication, the demand for instantaneous information has given rise to a new market, focused exclusively on the creation and advancement of dynamic network systems that bring millions of individuals and businesses together through an interconnected system of servers known as “the cloud”. As defined by IBM, cloud computing is the delivery of on-demand computing resources over the internet on a pay-for-use basis. This concept allows companies to harness incredible amounts of processing power, power that was inconceivable a mere decade ago. As more and more companies have adopted and integrated these systems of cloud computing into their business

As we allow the Internet to become more and more embedded into our lives the topic of cyber security also need to become more embedded in our lives as well. Duncan Campbell, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Bankers Association, points out, “Now more than ever, the world is vulnerable to hacking, phishing, data breaches, malware attacks and denial of service attempts from bad actors and nation states who want to compromise individual identification data and wreak havoc on our economy,” (Campbell). Each year we here about these attacks, Target, T. J. Maxx, Home Depot just to name a few. More concerning then, the frequency of these attacks is the magnitude of the data lost in these attacks.