An improved forensic-by-design framework for cloud computing with systems engineering standard compliance

Forensic-by-design is an emergent and ambitious paradigm that extends the Digital Forensic Readiness (DFR) perspective. Similar to Security-by-design, this new vision advocates the integration of Forensic requirements into the system's design and development stages to get Forensic-ready systems. While it seems promising, we hypothesize that: (a) this new alternative is not effective for some open boundaries systems, and (b) this strategy is not fully aligned with the Systems and software Engineering (SE) standards. A six phases research methodology based on systematic literature review, mapping, and analysis was adopted. Our results confirm indeed the stated hypothesis, identify missing key factors, and point out potential omissions. A new System and software Engineering driven Forensic-by-design framework, with an emphasis on Cloud computing systems, is therefore proposed. (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Forensic-by-design is a new paradigm advocating for the integration of forensic requirements into system design and development stages. However, it may not be effective for some open boundaries systems and is not fully aligned with Systems and Software Engineering standards. A new framework emphasizing on Cloud computing systems is proposed to address the identified issues.