Forensic-chain: Blockchain based digital forensics chain of custody with PoC in Hyperledger Composer

• Published in: Digital investigation 2019-03, Vol.28, p.44-55
• Main Authors: Lone, Auqib Hamid, Mir, Roohie Naaz
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Chain of custody; Digital forensics; Evidence integrity; Hyperledger Composer; Permissioned blockchain
• ISSN: 1742-2876; 1873-202X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.diin.2019.01.002

Advancements in Information Technology landscape over the past two decades have made the collection, preservation, and analysis of digital evidence an extremely important tool for solving cybercrimes and preparing court cases. Digital evidence plays an important role in cybercrime investigation, as it is used to link individuals with criminal activities. Thus it is of utmost importance to guarantee integrity, authenticity, and auditability of digital evidence as it moves along different levels of hierarchy in the chain of custody during cybercrime investigation. Modern day technology is more advanced in terms of portability and power. A huge amount of information is generated by billions of devices connected to the internet that needs to be stored and accessed, thus posing great challenges in maintaining the integrity and authenticity of digital evidence for its admissibility in the court of law. Handling digital evidences poses unique challenges because of the fact they are latent, volatile, fragile, can cross jurisdictional borders quickly and easily and in many cases can be time/machine dependent too. Thus guaranteeing the authenticity and legality of processes and procedures used to gather and transfer the evidence in a digital society is a real challenge. Blockchain technology's capability of enabling comprehensive view of transactions (events/actions) back to origination provides enormous promise for the forensic community. In this research we proposed Forensic-Chain: A Blockchain based Digital Forensics Chain of Custody, bringing integrity and tamper resistance to digital forensics chain of custody. We also provided Proof of Concept in Hyperledger Composer and evaluated its performance.