Conducting Effective Digital Forensics Investigations in the COVID-19 Era

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted many lives around the world and many business processes including the digital forensics investigation processes and how investigations should be conducted from here on out. As early as 1984 a general computer forensics investigation process was developed and continues to evolve with the need of the everchanging environment. The environment has changed once more due to the COVID-19 pandemic that was first detected in December 2019 and is with us up to date. This report reviews existing digital forensics processes throughout the years and adapts new steps to be followed in digital forensics investigations to accommodate the effects of the pandemic. We propose a Pandemic Digital Forensics Model (PDFM) based on the general digital forensics investigation processes that can be utilised in the COVID-19 era or in any other pandemic crisis that may occur.