" The constant flow of information makes compiling a forensics report on any given item very difficult. Legal issues may also hamper digital forensics in dealing with cloud issues. Cloud computing raises some unique law enforcement concerns regarding the location of potential digital evidence and its subsequent forensic analysis. When a savvy and knowledgeable customer or business becomes the target of a criminal investigation, they could migrate their working environment to a cloud environment. This would provide a means for the business to continue its routine operations while the migrated environment is forensically analyzed. The migrated data only represents a temporary snapshot of when it was sent to the cloud. Since the data can be stored anywhere in the world, its scattering could be to a location or country where privacy laws are not readily enforced or non-existent. Establishing a chain of custody for the data would become difficult or impossible if its integrity and authenticity cannot be fully determined.

Ward (2011) agreed when he claimed " if you're investigating a case, you have a responsibility to collect all relevant information, without exception. Cloud computing means that data universe can be larger, more scattered and unstructured, as opposed to being 'controlled' within an organization; as a result, you need to collect from increasing and new cloud data sources and the retrieval process can be more of a challenge."

There are also many troubling potential forensic issues when the customer or user exits a cloud application. Items subject to forensic analysis, such as registry entries, temporary files, and other artifacts are lost, making malicious activity difficult to validate. With the huge amount of potential data flowing in and out of a cloud, how do you identify individual users of individual services provided by a transient host image, particularly when they make expert efforts to cover their tracks? What if the owner of the image decides to engage in malicious behavior, through the host server image, from a third IP address, and then claim someone must have stolen their password...

Many forensic examiners recognize that there is no foolproof, universal method for extracting evidence in an admissible fashion from cloud-based applications, and in some cases, very little evidence is available to extract. As a result, cloud computing represents just one of the fast-paced technological developments that is presenting an ongoing challenge to legislators, law enforcement officials, and computer forensic analysts.
Conclusions

Unlike most important pieces of technology that help, the cloud seems to put digital forensics at a significant disadvantage. Applying laws and rules to places that have no laws and rules creates and interesting situation that is unique to both this technology and this time in history. Importance is not based on goodness or badness. Rather, the overall impact of any technology is seen in its importance.

References

Birk, D. (2011). Technical Challenges of Forensic Investigations in Cloud Computing Environments. Advances in Digital Forensics, Jan 11. 2011. Retrieved from http://www.zurich.ibm.com/~cca/csc2011/submissions/birk.pdf

Riley, D. et al. (2011). Cloud Computing: Pros and Cons for Computer Forensic Investigations. International Journal Multimedia and Image Processing, 1,1, March 2011. Retrieved from http://infonomics- society.org/IJMIP/Cloud%20Computing_Pros%20and%20Cons%20for%20Computer%2 0 Forensic%20Investigations.pdf

Siddha, V. (2011). Cloud Computing: Challenges and possible solutions for digital forensics. Nimbula, 3 Nov 2011. Retrieved from http://blog.nimbula.com/corporate/2011/11/cloud- computing-challenges-and-possible-solutions-for-digital-forensics/

Ward, C. (2011). Digital Forensics: the cloud challenge. Business Cloud News, 1 Nov 2011. Retrieved from http://www.businesscloudnews.com/security/635-digital-forensics-the- cloud-challenge.html