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

Summary

This chapter on cloud service providers provided an overview of three major players in the industry: AWS, Microsoft Azure, and GCP. It emphasized the importance of gaining a general understanding of these providers’ products and services. Each of these platforms has a range of offerings, but most organizations commonly utilize cloud provider solutions related to virtual machine creation, virtual network services, storage, and database services. Having a general understanding of these fundamental aspects is essential to effectively respond to incidents in the cloud and conduct forensics.

In the event of an incident or security breach in the cloud, knowledge of how these providers handle virtual machine creation, networking, and storage enables a quick and informed incident response. Understanding their respective capabilities and configurations allows for more efficient incident management and forensic analysis. In the next chapter, we will take a deep dive into responding...