A critical review of Bitcoins usage by cybercriminals

Bitcoin is a new form of global digital currency based on peer-to-peer network, enabling a new payment system, and also a completely decentralised cryptocurrency. The P2P network consists of a digital file listing transactions like a ledger, a copy of which is also maintained on every computer on the network, and the transactions are also broadcasted in the public ledger of the Bitcoin network. Anonymity is the core feature that makes Bitcoin popular among people around the world. This feature is attained through the Bitcoin addresses in the public ledger, which represents the users in the Bitcoin network. Because of the illicit use of Bitcoins, the level of anonymity has reduced even though the users are still using the anonymizers like TOR to keep the anonymity stronger to connect to the Bitcoin network. In this paper, we analyse the complete process of transaction of Bitcoins and the anonymity thatlies in that process. The study also focuses on finding the forensic artefacts and the investigative way of approach towards the Bitcoin using forensic tools. The forensic tools are used to analyse the web browser activities, local drive, hard disk image, cookies, downloads and session data related to Bitcoins. The attacker can relate the transaction of the users and can control the Bitcoin blocks by even delaying the transactions. This research will focus on the methods in which the memory and even mobile devices involved in the transaction could be captured and analysed.