Unveiling the secrets of IoT forensics: exploring frameworks, procedures, and a practical GUI implementation for IoT identification

Details

Supervisors

Sadre, Ramin

Faculty

Ecole polytechnique de Louvain

Degree label

Master [120] : ingénieur civil en informatique, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

Nowadays, most police departments have computer forensic investigators who examine and analyze computer equipment for evidence recovery. This happens routinely for typical computer equipment, such as laptops, mobile phones, and tablets, as part of criminal investigations. However, procedures and best practices are much less clear for modern IoT devices. The IoT raises several new challenges and prevents investigators from using traditional forensic methods. In this master thesis, we explored the different existing frameworks, procedures, tools and studied their applicability in an investigation context. We identified a gap in the identification of IoT devices at a crime scene. Most of the research assumes the availability of IoT devices. Yet the identification of IoT devices at a crime scene has become challenging. IoT devices can take on a wide range of forms and be integrated into everyday objects. Because of this, it may be difficult for police officers who are unfamiliar with the Internet of Things to identify IoT devices as such. To address this problem, we proposed a GUI that displays the active IoT devices in the vicinity by sniffing the WiFi, BLE, and ZigBee protocols.