Cloud storage forensics: ownCloud as a case study

The storage as a service (StaaS) cloud computing architecture is showing significant growth as users adopt the capability to store data in the cloud environment across a range of devices. Cloud (storage) forensics has recently emerged as a salient area of inquiry. Using a widely used open source cloud StaaS application – ownCloud – as a case study, we document a series of digital forensic experiments with the aim of providing forensic researchers and practitioners with an in-depth understanding of the artefacts required to undertake cloud storage forensics. Our experiments focus upon client and server artefacts, which are categories of potential evidential data specified before commencement of the experiments. A number of digital forensic artefacts are found as part of these experiments and are used to support the selection of artefact categories and provide a technical summary to practitioners of artefact types. Finally we provide some general guidelines for future forensic analysis on open source StaaS products and recommendations for future work.