A Crowdsourcing Digital Forensics Platform for IoT Environments Powered by Blockchain

Yaqing Zhang, Xiao Fu, Bin Luo, Xiaojiang Du

Abstract: Digital forensics is a security research field that has evolved with the advancement of digital technologies, such as computer and network technology. With the emergence of complex forensic environments, such as those found in the IoT and cloud computing, investigators are required to possess higher technical capabilities and knowledge. Completing digital forensics tasks more effectively has become a challenge. Therefore, this paper proposes a blockchain-based collaborative crowdsourcing platform for digital forensics. Through collaborating on the crowdsourcing platform, professional investigators can enhance the supervision of the digital forensics process, reduce the difficulty of digital forensics tasks, and improve their quality. In addition, we introduce blockchain technology to maintain the credibility of the investigation process. We have developed a smart contract and conducted experiments based on Ethereum. The experimental results show that our solution is feasible.