Methodology for digital forensic investigation of iCloud

Abstract

Growth in cloud services is surging around the world as cloud computing rapidly outstrips the projected growth rate for traditional IT products. Cloud service has characteristics that the data is synchronized in real time and could be approached from multiple devices. If the device is connected over network, it could be changed due to syncing service of data. One of the cloud syncing service is iCloud provided from Apple Corporation. Cloud syncing service provides various conveniences to users, but it is difficult to examine by investigators. For example, a suspect could use other devices to modify or delete the data related with the case through cloud storage service. To prevent this situation, this paper proposes new procedure for investigating and analyzing the data of iCloud. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media.