Forensicloud: An Architecture for Digital Forensic Analysis in the Cloud

The amount of data that must be processed in current digital forensic examinations continues to rise. Both the volume and diversity of data are obstacles to the timely completion of forensic investigations. Additionally, some law enforcement agencies do not have the resources to handle cases of even moderate size. To address these issues we have developed an architecture for a cloud-based distributed processing platform we have named Forensicloud. This architecture is designed to reduce the time taken to process digital evidence by leveraging the power of a high performance computing platform and by adapting existing tools to operate within this environment. Forensicloud’s Software and Infrastructure as a Service service models allow investigators to use remote virtual environments for investigating digital evidence. These environments allow investigators the ability to use licensed and unlicensed tools that they may not have had access to before and allows some of these tools to be run on computing clusters.