Title: Cloud forensics-enabled chain of custody: a novel and secure modular architecture using Blockchain Hyperledger Sawtooth

Authors: Abdullah Ayub Khan; Asif Ali Laghari; Anil Kumar; Zaffar Ahmed Shaikh; Umair Baig; Abdul Ahad Abro

Addresses: Department of Computer Science, Sindh Madressatul Islam University, Karachi 74000, Sindh, Pakistan; Faculty of Computing Science and Information Technology, Benazir Bhutto Shaheed University Lyari, Karachi 75660, Sindh, Pakistan ' Department of Computer Science, Sindh Madressatul Islam University, Karachi 74000, Sindh, Pakistan ' Department of Computer Science, Sindh Madressatul Islam University, Karachi 74000, Sindh, Pakistan ' Faculty of Computing Science and Information Technology, Benazir Bhutto Shaheed University Lyari, Karachi 75660, Sindh, Pakistan ' Department of Commerce, Benazir Bhutto Shaheed University Lyari, Karachi 75660, Sindh, Pakistan ' Department of Computer Engineering, Faculty of Natural and Applied Science, Ege University, Izmir 35100, Turkey

Abstract: The exchange of digital information has significantly emerged in the last decade. The increased number of cyber threats over the cloud increases the rate of utilisation of cloud forensics protocols. The lifecycle of cloud computing is getting more affected by the increased number of malicious attacks as more users are sharing, accessing, manipulating, scaling, and reusing data storage. In a cloud forensics environment, it poses a serious issue to provide a confidentiality, integrity, reliability, and trustworthiness platform. This paper overpasses the rift by enabling a novel, secure, and transparent cloud forensics chain-of-custody investigation processes using blockchain. A Hyperledger Sawtooth provides a secure cloud forensics chain-of-custody investigation architecture is proposed. A private block-based ledger network is set up by a group of people who want to exchange and digitally sign on different parts of a forensics investigation. On the other side, chain codes are implemented to automate transactions of a chain of custody.

Keywords: blockchain; Hyperledger Sawtooth; smart contracts; NuCypher re-encryption; cloud forensics; chain of custody.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESDF.2023.131959

International Journal of Electronic Security and Digital Forensics, 2023 Vol.15 No.4, pp.413 - 423

Received: 15 Jun 2022
Accepted: 05 Oct 2022
Published online: 05 Jul 2023 *

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