| The purpose of this research was to examine factors that organizations must consider when they are making the decision to move their data services to cloud computing. What services should organizations consider when they are moving to the cloud? In what way does digital forensics in the cloud differ from traditional digital forensics? How does utilizing a third party to host the cloud services impact an organizations decision? The research determined that digital forensics and eDiscovery in the cloud computing environment is an emerging field and has a number of issues to overcome. The issues include detailed policies organizations should follow, budget difficulties, security, data accessibility, admissibility in court and foreign laws regarding data stored outside the United States. There are three main services; Cloud Infrastructure as a Service, Cloud Platform as a Service and Cloud Software as a Service. Each service has their own benefits and weaknesses, but the service an organization chooses can be dependent on a number of various factors. Both traditional digital forensics and eDiscovery have proven to be especially challenging within the cloud environment. Digital forensic tools designed to capture data from a workstation or a server are not always effective when attempting to capture data from a cloud environment. There are three major types of clouds an organization can consider. The private cloud, the public cloud and the hybrid cloud. Private clouds are usually fully managed by the organization, but still maintain all of the benefits of the cloud environment. The public cloud is typically hosted by a third party and the data is maintained outside the confines of the organization. The hybrid cloud is a combination of the two types of environments. Keywords: Cybersecurity, Professor Christopher Riddell, law enforcement, forensics as a service, electronic crimes protection act and electronically stored information. |
