Digital Forensics: The Missing Piece of the Internet of Things Promise

In 2016, our CEO Steve Watson and Dr. Ali Dehghantanha (University of Guelph) wrote an article entitled Digital forensics: the missing piece of the Internet of Things promise. In this article Watson and Dehghantanha discuss considerations for digital forensic practitioners, legal authorities and device manufacturers.

"The digital forensic complexity for embedded technologies centres around three issues:

1. The onboard data storage is not accessible via traditional digital forensics methods.

2. The cumulative dataset may exist in multiple locations.

3. Even if the data can be acquired it may not be readable or accessible with existing tools."

While the article is nearly four years old, the foresight from these two scholars paint a picture that has not changed much with the passage of time.

Internet of Things devices still present a remarkable challenge for digital forensic practitioners with little guidance or assistance from digital forensic vendors. VTO Labs conducts research on Internet of Things (IoT) as well as other embedded devices. We have a significant dataset of data acquisitions from consumer IoT devices as well as data from vehicles, drones, medical devices and smart TVs.

If you need assistance with digital forensics on IoT or other unsupported embedded devices, stands ready to assist you.

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2016 June 15. Watson, S., & Dehghantanha, A. "Digital forensics: the missing piece of the Internet of Things promise". Elsevier, Computer Fraud & Security. Link to the original article.