Collection and Analysis of Digital Forensic Data from Devices in the Internet of Things

Despite the abundance of articles that have been written about the Internet of Things (IoT), little attention has been given to how digital forensic approaches can be utilized to direct advanced investigations in IoT-based frameworks. Current digital forensic tools and functions are not generally prepared to tackle the complexity of IoT frameworks for the purpose of collecting, analyzing, and testing potential evidence from IoT environments that might be utilized as permissible evidence in a courtroom. Hence, the issue to be addressed is that; currently, there is no generally-accepted digital forensic framework that can be used to conduct digital forensic investigations in IoT-based environments. In addition, at the time of this writing, there has been little focus on how to gather and save network and server logs from IoT-based environments for investigative purposes. Based on this premise, we propose a digital forensic framework called Radlen, a lightweight digital forensic investigation model to enhance and support future IoT investigative capabilities. Radlen is also able to coordinate and manage IoT devices within a smart home environment using a smart watch or smart phone to satisfy the user’s needs, preserve security, and make decisions automatically. The authors simulate the Radlen system using a Java application that learns user’s needs and security preferences during installation and uses a MySQL server to log all data communications.