Finding File Fragments in the Cloud
Ras and Olivier
2012
Citation information
D. Ras and M. S. Olivier. “Finding File Fragments in the Cloud”. In: Advances in Digital Forensics VIII. Ed. by G. Peterson and S. Shenoi. Springer, 2012, pp. 169–185Abstract
As the use — and abuse — of cloud computing increases, it becomes necessary to conduct forensic analyses of cloud computing systems. This paper evaluates the feasibility of performing a digital forensic investigation on a cloud computing system. Specifically, experiments were conducted on the Nimbula on-site cloud operating system to determine if meaningful information can be extracted from a cloud system. The experiments involved planting known, unique files in a cloud computing infrastructure, and subsequently performing forensic captures of the virtual machine image that executes in the cloud. The results demonstrate that it is possible to extract key information about a cloud system and, in certain cases, even restart a virtual machine.
Definitive version
The definitive version of the paper is available from the publisher.DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-33962-2_12
BibTeX reference
@inproceedings(cloudfrags,author={Dirk Ras and Martin S Olivier},
title={Finding File Fragments in the Cloud},
booktitle={Advances in Digital Forensics VIII},
Editor={Gilbert Peterson and Sujeet Shenoi},
year={2012},
pages={169--185},
publisher={Springer} )