Cyber Forensics on Internet of Things: Slicing and Dicing Raspberry Pi

Abstract

Any device can now connect to the Internet, and Raspberry Pi is one of the more popular applications, enabling single-board computers to make robotics, devices, and appliances part of the Internet of Things (IoT). The low cost and customizability of Raspberry Pi makes it easily adopted and widespread. Unfortunately, the unprotected Raspberry Pi device—when connected to the Internet—also paves the way for cyber-attacks. Our ability to investigate, collect, and validate digital forensic evidence with confidence using Raspberry Pi has become important. This article discusses and presents techniques and methodologies for the investigation of timestamp variations between different Raspberry Pi ext4 filesystems (Raspbian vs. UbuntuMATE), comparing forensic evidence with that of other ext4 filesystems (i.e., Ubuntu), based on interactions within a private cloud, as well as a public cloud. Sixteen observational principles of file operations were documented to assist in our understanding of Raspberry Pi’s behavior in the cloud environments. This study contributes to IoT forensics for law enforcement in cybercrime investigations.