Conceptual forensic readiness framework for infrastructure as a service consumers

Cloud computing provides to the consumers basic computing resources that range from storage and computing power to sophisticated applications. When digital forensics is needed for suspected cases involving cloud computing, the provider is responsible for collecting the digital evidence. Limitations of this approach include lack of efficient incident response, and that the consumers may have a little or no choice but to accept electronic evidences made available by the cloud provider. This research investigates whether it is possible to perform consumer-side digital forensics where a consumer independently collects all digital evidences required for a suspected case from Infrastructure as a Service resources (IaaS). In particular, the research contributes to a digital forensics readiness framework that shows how digital evidence collection can be made strongly consumer-centric, so that all the electronic evidences that digital forensic investigation requires for suspected cases can be provided independently by the IaaS consumers.