FSIDI 2021 : Special Issue on Internet of Things (IoT) Forensics and Incident Response: The Good, The Bad, and the Unaddressed

Forensic Science International: Digital Investigation
Special Issue on Internet of Things (IoT) Forensics and Incident Response: The Good, The Bad, and the Unaddressed

Important Dates

- Paper Submission: 31st January 2022
- Notification of Initial Decision 15th March 2022
- Minor Revisions due (if needed) 15th April 2022
- Notification of Final Decision 15th May 2022
- Final Manuscripts Due 16th June 2022
- Publication Date Late 2022

Internet of Things (IoT) devices are becoming increasingly integrated into everyday life and can now be found in a variety of environments, including hospitals, homes, businesses, and even manufacturing processes. According to Statista [1], there are approximately 13 billion active IoT device connections worldwide. Statista goes on to predict that this figure will surpass 30 billion by 2025 [1]. While this rapidly changing IoT landscape introduces a variety of security and privacy risks, from a digital forensics and incident response perspective, IoT devices could provide investigators with a wealth of information. Data produced and stored by IoT devices, including in cloud-based IoT systems, is already providing important evidence in criminal and civil court proceedings. For example, in Arkansas v. Bates [2], law enforcement officers examined the defendant’s smart speaker for the purposes of identifying any digital evidence related to a murder investigation could be recovered from the speaker device. Likewise, an individual was charged for sexual assault based on digital evidence recovered from an IoT smart camera [3].

While the inclusion of IoT evidence into a variety of legal situations is increasing, the digital forensics and incident response communities have argued that the investigation of IoT devices is unlikely to be straightforward. Concerns raised by these communities include the suitability and effectiveness of traditional evidence acquisition approaches in IoT environments; the development and improvement of tools and processes to assist investigators with IoT device disassembly; incident detection; data acquisition, and the preservation of evidence in IoT devices and their ecosystems.

This Special Issue (SI) invites original research papers that report on the state-of-the-art and recent advancements under the umbrella of “Internet of Things (IoT) Forensics and Incident Response”. The SI will have particular emphasis on addressing current IoT concerns from the digital forensics and incident response communities, as well as from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to

- Case studies surrounding the investigation of IoT devices in different, real-world settings (e.g., industrial IoT, medical IoT, military IoT, cloud-based IoT);
- Anti-IoT device forensics;
- Malware analysis and the investigation of IoT devices (and the supporting infrastructure);
- Network investigations – collection, analysis, and visualization of network forensic data, related to IoT devices and their ecosystems;
- The impact of IoT digital evidence on the legal system;
- Event reconstruction approaches and techniques, related to IoT device investigation;
- The application of machines learning tools and techniques in terms of investigations related to IoT devices;
- Privacy implications related to digital forensic investigations of IoT devices, and balancing the need for lawful surveillance;
- Forensic-by-design options for IoT devices;
- IoT device incident response, and the implications of IoT devices on the traditional incident response lifecycle;
- E-discovery challenges related to IoT devices;
- Forensic engineering activities to support investigations involving IoT devices;
- Digital evidence recovery, storage, preservation, and memory analysis, related to IoT devices, including the development of tools and processes towards these efforts;
- ‘Big Data’ solutions and investigations and their application to IoT forensics;
- Research efforts that attempt to address the integration of mobile phone applications and cloud computing services together with IoT devices and implications this will have on the preservation, collection, and analysis of IoT evidence.

Submissions on systematic literature reviews or surveys, as well as dataset generations, will be highly encouraged.

Submission assessment

The submissions must not have been previously published or submitted for a journal or conference publication. A detailed submission guideline is available as “Guide to Authors” at https://www.elsevier.com/journals/forensic-science-international-digital-investigation/2666-2817/guide-for-authors.

All manuscripts and any supplementary material should be submitted through the Editorial Manager. The authors must select “SI – IoT Forensics & IR” when they reach the “Article Type” step in the submission process, located at https://www.editorialmanager.com/fsidi/default.aspx. Requests for additional information should be addressed to the guest editors.