The Internet of Things: Challenges and Considerations for Cybercrime Investigations and Digital Forensics

The Internet of Things (IoT) represents the seamless merging of the real and digital world, with new devices created that store and pass around data. Processing large quantities of IoT data will proportionately increase workloads of data centres, leaving providers with new security, capacity, and analytics challenges. Handling this data conveniently is a critical challenge, as the overall application performance is highly dependent on the properties of the data management service. This article explores the challenges posed by cybercrime investigations and digital forensics concerning the shifting landscape of crime – the IoT and the evident investigative complexity – moving to the Internet of Anything (IoA)/Internet of Everything (IoE) era. IoT forensics requires a multi-faceted approach where evidence may be collected from a variety of sources such as sensor devices, communication devices, fridges, cars and drones, to smart swarms and intelligent buildings.