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

Exploring the Major Cloud Providers

As discussed in Chapter 1, cloud computing has become the preferred choice for many organizations looking to modernize their IT infrastructure and take advantage of the benefits of cloud adoption. As incident responders, it is important to focus on the digital forensics of popular cloud service providers due to their widespread adoption by organizations. Among the top cloud service providers on the market, you will most likely encounter three main cloud providers in your next cloud forensics project: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

Understanding how these providers work, their security measures, and where forensic artifacts may be stored is crucial for organizations looking to ensure the security of their data and applications, as well as being crucial for incident responders looking to respond to security incidents. Each cloud service provider has its own architecture and security controls, which must...