Reference Architecture for a Cloud Forensic Readiness System

The Digital Forensic science is participating to a brand new change represented by the management of incidents in the Cloud Computing Services. Due that the Cloud Computing architecture is uncontrollable because of some specific features, its use to commit crimes is becoming a very critical issue, too. Proactive Cloud Forensics becomes a matter of urgency, due to its capability of collecting critical data before crimes happen, thus saving time and money for the subsequent investigations. In this paper, a proposal for a Cloud Forensic Readiness System is presented. It is conceived as reference architecture, in order to be of general applicability, not technically constrained by any Cloud architecture. The principal aim of this work is to extend our initial proposed Cloud Forensic Readiness System reference architecture, by providing more details and an example of its application by exploiting the Open Stack Cloud Platform.

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