Cloud forensics: State-of-the-art and future directions

Cloud computing is becoming increasingly prevalent, which has resulted in a growing need for forensic investigations involving cloud technologies. This need has spawned the growth of research in cloud forensics. Since 2011, a number of publications have highlighted the challenges experts face in responding to cloud computing. For example, in 2014 the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology identified 65 key challenges in the field of cloud forensics in the draft report “NIST Cloud Computing Forensic Science Challenges” (NIST IR 8006, http://csrc.nist. gov/publications/drafts/nistir-8006/draft_nistir_8006.pdf). This special issue is dedicated to the reporting of stateof-the-art and recent advancements in this emerging area of enquiry. We received 13 submissions for this special issue, of which only 2 were accepted for publication (i.e. ~15.4% acceptance rate). The low number of submissions and small acceptance rate are, perhaps, indications of the lack of focus in this area. More importantly, the acceptance rate of 15.4% is an indication of the quality of the accepted papers. Each paper went through a rigorous peer review process, in addition to multiple follow-up rounds with the authors. A summary of the papers is provided below.