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Cloud evidence tracks of storage service linking with iOS systems

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Abstract

The increasing usage of mobile cloud computing leads the cloud to become a hotbed of crime. Cloud storage is different from previous data storage in digital forensics. In this paper, we concentrate on gathering evidence from mobile iOS devices and the types of data remnants that can be found on iOS devices for different user scenarios and device states. We develop several steps for experimenting on Google Drive, OneDrive and Dropbox. We found that the evidence collection of power-off state is not the major problem in digital forensics. Different applications of cloud storage show the different statuses of data remnants. The study also shows that thumbnails and cache files are the key of evidence recovery. We present how the digital investigators to collect evidence by examining the data remnants files as well.

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Acknowledgement

This research was partially supported by the Oriental Institute of Technology under the Grants RD 108-7-11-006, RD 108-0055 and the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Republic of China under the Grants MOST 107-2221-E-005-031 and MOST 107-2221-E-015-001-MY2.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, National Chung-Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan

    Hung-Jui Ko & Gwoboa Horng

  2. Department of Information Management, Oriental Institute of Technology, New Taipei City, Taiwan

    Cheng-Ta Huang

  3. Department of Information Management, Central Police University, Taoyüan, Taiwan

    Zhi-Wei Zhuang & Shiuh-Jeng Wang

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  1. Hung-Jui Ko
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  2. Cheng-Ta Huang
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  3. Zhi-Wei Zhuang
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  4. Gwoboa Horng
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  5. Shiuh-Jeng Wang
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Correspondence to Shiuh-Jeng Wang.

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Ko, HJ., Huang, CT., Zhuang, ZW. et al. Cloud evidence tracks of storage service linking with iOS systems. J Supercomput 77, 77–94 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11227-020-03255-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11227-020-03255-5

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