Cloud Computing and Forensic Accounting: Friends or Foes?

The digital forensics refers to the application of scientific techniques in investigation of a crime, specifically to identify or validate involvement of some suspect in an activity leading towards that crime. Network forensics particularly deals with the monitoring of network traffic with an aim to trace some suspected activity from normal traffic or to identify some abnormal pattern in the traffic that may give clue towards some attack. Network forensics, quite valuable phenomenon in investigation process, presents certain challenges including problems in accessing network devices of cloud architecture, handling large amount network traffic, and rigorous processing required to analyse the huge volume of data, of which large proportion may prove to be irrelevant later on. Cloud Computing technology offers services to its clients remotely from a shared pool of resources, as per clients customized requirement, any time, from anywhere. Cloud Computing has attained tremendous popularity recently, leading to its vast and rapid deployment, however Privacy and Security concerns have also increased in same ratio, since data and application is outsourced to a third party. Security concerns about cloud architecture have come up as the prime barrier hindering the major shift of industry towards cloud model, despite significant advantages of cloud architecture. Cloud computing architecture presents aggravated and specific challenges in the network forensics. In this paper, I have reviewed challenges and issues faced in conducting network forensics particularly in the cloud computing environment. The study covers limitations that a network forensic expert may confront during investigation in cloud environment. I have categorized challenges presented to network forensics in cloud computing into various groups. Challenges in each group can be handled appropriately by either Forensic experts, Cloud service providers or Forensic tools whereas leftover challenges are declared as beyond the control.

<span lang="EN-US">Cloud Computing is the ability to improve the utility or train new human resources without investing in new infrastructure, or add capabilities to existence without the latest software licensing. It expanded the capabilities of Information Technology (IT). From the past few years, cloud computing has developed from a good business concept in the best rising sectors of the IT industry. But more information on individuals and companies was put in the cloud, and concerns began to think about how secure the cloud environment was. Despite cloud surrounding structures, enterprise users still do not want to expand their business in the cloud. Security reduces the growth of cloud computing and continues to spread the market with complexity with data privacy and data protection. The security of cloud computing has constantly been an significant aspect of improved quality of service from cloud service providers. Data storage in the cloud has a problem related to data security. However, cloud computing construct many new security challenges which have not been well examine. In order to ensure that the user's data in the cloud is secure, we have proposed an effective mechanism with a distinctive feature of data integrity and privacy. This paper focusing on problems relating to the cloud data storage techniques and security in virtual environment. We recommend a method for providing data storage and security in cloud using public key Cryptosystem, which uses the concept of the modified RSA algorithm to provide better security for the data stored in the cloud. </span>

Cloud Forensics refers to digital forensics investigations performed in Cloud Computing Environments. Nowadays digital investigators face various technical, legal, and organizational challenges to keep up with current developments in the field of Cloud Computing. But, due to its dynamic nature, Cloud Computing also offers several opportunities to improve digital investigations in Cloud Environments. Digital investigators may utilize Cloud Computing setups and process complex tasks in cloud infrastructures. Thus they can take advantage of the enormous computing power at hand in such environments.In this paper we focus on the current State-of-the-Art of affected fields of Cloud Forensics. The benefit for the reader of this paper is a clear overview of the challenges and opportunities for scientific developments in the field of Cloud Forensics.KeywordsCloud Forensicsdigital forensicsevidence

Cloud computing is evolving web based technology. Which provide various service to physical IT infrastructure which is managed and hosted by third party. Features due to which cloud find its application in E-learning, cloud based ERP and E-governance are flexibility, availability, scalability, efficiency and reliability. As large number of computing technology is involved in cloud computing it is an object of security issues. In this research, we have discussed about basics of cloud computing, features, models, application, security issue, basics of digital forensics and cloud forensic as well as the challenges faced during the cloud investigation. Keywords :Cloud computing, E-governance, cloud ERP, E-learning, Forensic, Cloud Forensics

Today, cloud computing has developed a transformative model for the organization, business, governments that brings huge potentials and turn into popular for pay as you go, on-demand service, scalability and efficient services. However, cloud computing has made the concern for forensic data because of the architecture of cloud system is not measured appropriately. Due to the distributed nature of the cloud system, many aspects relating to the forensic investigation such as data collection, data storage, crime target, data violation are difficult to achieve. Investigating the incidents in the cloud environment is a challenging task because the forensics investigator still needs to relay on the third party such as cloud service provider for performing their investigation tasks. It makes the overall forensic process difficult to complete with a duration and presented it to the court. Recently, there are some cloud forensics studies to address the challenges such as evidence collection, data acquisition, identifying the incidents and so on. However, still, there is a research gap in terms of consistency of analysing forensic evidence from distributed environment and methodology to analyse the forensic data in the cloud. This thesis contributes towards the direction of addressing the research gaps. In particular, this work proposes a forensic investigation framework CeFF: A framework for forensics enabled cloud investigation to investigate evidence in the cloud computing environment. The framework includes a set of concepts from organisational, technical and legal perspectives, which gives a holistic view of analysing cybercrime from organisation context where the crime has occurred through technical context and legal impact. The CeFF also includes a systematic process that uses the concept for performing the investigation. The cloud-enabled forensics framework meets all the forensics related requirement such as data collection, examination, presents the report, and identifies the potential risks that can consider while investigating the evidence in the cloud-computing environment. Finally, the proposed CeFF is applied to a real-life example to validate its applicability. The result shows that CeFF supports analysing the forensic data for a crime occurred in cloud-based system in a systematic way.

Reeta Sony A.L - National Law University, New Delhi, India. E-mail:reeta.sony@nludelhi.ac.in.Sri Krishna Deva Rao - Professor, National Law University, New Delhi, India. E-mail: psrikrishnadevarao@gmail.com.Bhukya Devi Prasad - Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi, India. E-mail: bdeviprasad@csir.res.in. Cloud computing refers to anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet. It is fast, cheap, flexible and elastic in nature. In spite of its benefits, cloud computing raises risks for data protection and privacy. One key issue presented by cloud computing is the fact that it changes our thinking of what we consider to be "our data" Data is no longer physically stored on a specific set of computers or servers, but is rather geographically distributed. The globalised nature of cloud computing poses a challenge for personal data protection, which requires a clear location for personal data, an identification of the processor and a responsible individual for data processing. Cloud data can be misused and/or shared with third parties without prior knowledge or consent of the data owner. The direct participation of an individual in transborder data transfer, third party participation in data storage, the processing and transmission of dataand, finally, negligence of data protection due diligence from cloud service providers, makes data protection and privacy laws more relevant. The recent PRISM surveillance programme scandal at the US National Security Agency (NSA) demonstrated the privacy risks that citizens around the world take on when their personal informa­tion is stored and processed in the cloud. This situation requires awell-established techno-legal solution along international standards. India, unlike the European Union, has no dedicated regulatory framework to deal with privacy and personal data protection. Although cloud computing is still in its initial stages in India, existing laws for people who are currently using facilities offeredby cloud service providers are extremely inadequate. However, cloud computing requires legal protection in India under the country's data protection laws, privacy laws and data breach laws, which must meet "international standards'! It is the right time for the Indian government to enact appropriate regulatory frameworks to protect personal data and privacy in the cloud era. The overall objective of this paper is to understand the impact of cloud computing on privacy and personal data protection and to analyse present legal frameworks governing privacy and personal data protection in India and Europe.

Cloud computing and big data: Technologies and applications

Most cloud users and officialdoms have a great interest in adoption and use cloud services like cloud storage to store their data on cloud environment. With the speedy growing in cloud computing technology, user's data security and privacy in cloud computing technology is the utmost dangerous issues because data owner stores their sensitive data onto remote cloud storage. However, successful retrieval of confidential data and computation on confidential data is hard to succeed by traditional cryptographic algorithm. Hence, to warrant the cloud security we are using the cryptographic algorithms that supports for computation over encrypted data. In this, Homomorphic cryptographic algorithm is one such technique that has interested homomorphic cryptographic algorithm used to secure user data in cloud server. It performs computation on cipher texts data can be operated directly without affecting the confidentiality of the encryption algorithms. We have established a framework for security of data on a cloud storage by using fully homomorphic cryptographic algorithm. Indeed, In this study, we have evaluated complexity of three homomorphic cryptographic algorithm those are SDC FHE, Paillier and RSA with encryption time, decryption time, throughput and memory usage

Cloud computing not only provides convenience for users, but also brings certain information security threats to users. How to effectively protect the user’s information security has become one of the core issues of network security. This paper analyzes the problems and reasons of network security in cloud computing environment, and points out the main ways to improve network security. This paper analyzes the network security problems in the cloud computing environment, and discusses the information security technology in the network. This paper studies the definition, characteristics, classification and core technology of cloud computing security, analyzes the security risk of cloud computing network, and puts forward the cloud computing network security model and security level evaluation method from different angles. Level experiment results show that the network security model in cloud environment is feasible, computing can fully meet the development requirements of the current network information age, and effectively standardize the network security operation environment. The results show that: in 2016, the number of articles related to cloud computing is at least 2653, and in 2020, the number of articles related to cloud computing is at most 6438.

Digital forensic methods for cybercrime investigation in a cloud computing environment (i.e., cloud forensic) is a broad term that encompasses a number of different fields, including digital forensics and cloud computing. The authors hope to gain a better understanding of cloud computing and identify challenges and opportunities in forensic science. They present research that may be used to establish strategies for the creation of measures, standards, and technological research to minimise the issues that cannot be solved with current technology and methodologies. Among the topics covered in this chapter are cloud computing, digital forensics, cybercrimes, and cloud forensics. Also covered are an overview and principles of cloud computing as well as digital forensics, cybercrimes, and challenges, as well as opportunities in the field of cloud forensics. The state of the art in the cloud forensic domain is also presented, as is a literature review on related work to digital forensics techniques in the cloud computing environment.

Cloud Computing is a model based on computing system which provides convenient and customizable services to the users for accessing to different cloud applications. It provides a way for storing and accessing cloud data from anywhere via connecting the cloud application utilizing internet. The cloud computing and its related safety problems is one of widely discussed concerns in today generation's research field. While numerous cloud security investigations are previously widespread, there residues a definite distance in properly identifying these issues and find the appropriate solutions. Some studies discuss the problems of virtualization and approach the target, while others talk about access control mechanisms, but what's missing is a standard framework which simultaneously extends the concept of cloud security and describes its specific requirements. In addition, countermeasures given in a survey must clearly illustrate the problem it deals with. This analysis paper took all of these elements into consideration so that the necessary areas were properly connected and a number of open issues were discussed in this area. This paper also reviews the most significant security techniques to data protection and cloud security in the cloud computing. Moreover, security techniques for data protection will be recommended in order to have enhanced security in cloud computing. It will concentrate primarily on issues related to data security and provides solutions.

Cloud computing is the technology of the modern era having invaluable features that convince enterprises to adopt. It provides opportunities to the enterprises to compete with their opponents, to facilitate their customers, and grow up their day to day business by reducing cost and infrastructure management burden. Regardless of the enormous features offered by cloud computing, enterprises generally hesitate to adopt it due to the physical inaccessibility and deployment of their intellectual properties to a location that is unknown to them. On the other hand, the cyber-criminals sniffing around to find the loopholes to breach in, and compromise the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the resources managed by Cloud Service Provider (CSP). The emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Cyber-Physical Cloud Systems (CPCS) where the data is processed and stored in the cloud environment, demands the need to tighten up the security of the cloud itself. Identifying and tracing the source of a cyber-attack plays an integral role in the investigation process. Digital forensics in the cloud termed Cloud Forensics which boosts the confidence of the stack holders by reconstructing the past cloud events to give a hypothetical view of the crime scene and describe how the malicious activity had happened? The collection of evidence especially in the cloud environment is the most complex task due to its scattered architecture. Moreover, the collected evidence was used for the investigation to shield the cloud environment from a future security breach and bring the cybercriminal to the court of justice. In this paper, we have presented an analysis of cloud forensics techniques and their practical challenges/limitations to cope with cloud forensic investigators.

This study examined the impact of technology on digital forensics and the challenges faced by forensic accountants in the era of cybercrime. The study highlights the four dimensions in which technology has an impact on digital forensics: technical, legal, organizational, and educational. The paper also discusses how emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning can be used in digital forensics, along with the challenges they present. Cloud computing is also examined, and the challenges it poses for forensic accountants who need to access and analyze financial data stored or processed in the cloud are discussed. The research used a qualitative research design and incorporated the chain of custody theory in digital forensics. The findings of this study suggest that forensic accountants need to update their knowledge and skills in digital forensics to keep up with the latest trends and technologies in cybercrime in Nigeria. It is recommended that forensic accountants adopt a multidisciplinary approach that integrates accounting principles with digital forensics methods and tools. Additionally, following best practices and guidelines for digital evidence collection, preservation, analysis, and presentation is crucial to ensure the integrity, reliability, and admissibility of digital evidence in court.

Cloud computing has generated significant interest in both academia and industry, but it is still an evolving paradigm. Cloud computing services are also, a popular target for malicious activities; resulting to the exponential increase of cyber attacks. Digital evidence is the evidence that is collected from the suspect’s workstations or electronic medium that could be used in order to assist computer forensics investigations. Cloud forensics involves digital evidence collection in the cloud environment. The current established forensic procedures and process models require major changes in order to be acceptable in cloud environment. This paper, aims to assess challenges forensic examiners face in tracking down and using digital information stored in the cloud and discuss the importance of education and training to handle, manage and investigate computer evidence.KeywordsCloud computingCloud forensicsDigital evidenceCyber security strategyComputer misuse actAnti-forensicsChallenges of cloud forensics

Cloud computing has transformed the IT field by offering adaptable and versatile resources to cater to the increasing demands of businesses and organizations. Virtualization technologies are instrumental in facilitating the efficient deployment and management of resources within cloud environments. However, there are notable concerns regarding the security implications of virtualization in the cloud. This research paper thoroughly examines the security aspects of virtualization technologies in cloud computing, primarily focusing on identifying potential weaknesses, risks, and strategies to mitigate security threats. Additionally, the study investigates the security features and mechanisms provided by leading virtualization platforms and management tools. It scrutinizes access controls, isolation methods, network security, data protection, and integrity mechanisms offered by virtualization technologies to safeguard the cloud infrastructure and customer data. Furthermore, the paper addresses emerging security concerns associated with containerization technologies, encompassing vulnerabilities related to container escape, risks stemming from shared kernels, and issues concerning image integrity. It explores the effectiveness of container security measures, such asisolation, sandboxing, and access controls, in reducing these risks. Lastly, the paper summarizes the main findings and provides recommendations to enhance the security of virtualization technologies in cloud computing. It emphasizes the importance of continuous monitoring, regular security updates, robust access controls, and threat intelligence integration to mitigate security risks and uphold a secure cloud infrastructure.