Book Image

Cloud Forensics Demystified

By : Ganesh Ramakrishnan, Mansoor Haqanee
Book Image

Cloud Forensics Demystified

By: Ganesh Ramakrishnan, Mansoor Haqanee

Overview of this book

As organizations embrace cloud-centric environments, it becomes imperative for security professionals to master the skills of effective cloud investigation. Cloud Forensics Demystified addresses this pressing need, explaining how to use cloud-native tools and logs together with traditional digital forensic techniques for a thorough cloud investigation. The book begins by giving you an overview of cloud services, followed by a detailed exploration of the tools and techniques used to investigate popular cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Progressing through the chapters, you’ll learn how to investigate Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and containerized environments such as Kubernetes. Throughout, the chapters emphasize the significance of the cloud, explaining which tools and logs need to be enabled for investigative purposes and demonstrating how to integrate them with traditional digital forensic tools and techniques to respond to cloud security incidents. By the end of this book, you’ll be well-equipped to handle security breaches in cloud-based environments and have a comprehensive understanding of the essential cloud-based logs vital to your investigations. This knowledge will enable you to swiftly acquire and scrutinize artifacts of interest in cloud security incidents.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Part 1: Cloud Fundamentals
6
Part 2: Forensic Readiness: Tools, Techniques, and Preparation for Cloud Forensics
10
Part 3: Cloud Forensic Analysis – Responding to an Incident in the Cloud

Introduction to the Cloud

Cloud computing has been around for years – the concept of computing resources being offered to users or customers over the internet. While the concept is not new, it has been offered in various forms and can be deployed in various ways. The benefit of the cloud is that it natively offers scalability, the flexibility of resources (meaning you can choose how powerful resources you need, depending upon computational requirements), and cost-effectiveness, making it easier for organizations to plan for cloud adoption. As a result, organizations are now migrating their critical data and business applications to the cloud, creating new challenges for incident responders when investigating security incidents and data breaches. According to Gartner’s report, 80% of enterprises will be moving to a cloud-only strategy by 2025 and moving away from traditional data centers. Meanwhile, the IDG 2020 Cloud Computing survey indicates that at least 92% of companies...