Muhammad Sharjeel Zareen

The invention of transistors in the 1940s marked the beginning of a technological revolution that has impacted every aspect of our lives. However, along with the positive advancements, the malicious use of computing technologies has become a serious concern. The international community has been actively collaborating to develop digital forensics techniques to combat the unlawful use of these technologies. However, the evolution of digital forensics has often lagged behind the rapid developments in computing technologies. In addition to their harmful use, computing devices are increasingly involved in crime scenes and accidents, necessitating digital forensics to reconstruct events. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the development of computing technologies from the 1940s to the present, highlighting the trends in their malicious use and the corresponding advancements in digital forensics. The paper also discusses various institutes, laboratories, organizations, and training setups established at national and international levels for digital forensics purposes. Furthermore, it explores the initial legislations related to computer-related crimes and the standards associated with digital forensics. These reviews and discussions conclude at identifying the shortfalls in digital forensics and proposes an all-inclusive digital forensics process model meeting these shortfalls while complying to international standards and meeting regulatory and legal requirements of digital forensics.

Internet of Things (IoT) is progressing at a fast pace. Issues of security and privacy, emerged with introduction of IoT in late nineties, are still amongst the main challenges. In security issues, authentication and authorization of edge devices are main concerns due to resource constrained nature of edge devices. Various solutions have been proposed in the past to address said concerns but most of the solutions are based on increasing the computational capacity, storage and power in edge devices. However, said solutions are not practical since these solutions are either not possible due to small size of edge devices of IoT or not economical for their wide spread adoption. Some of the solutions also suggest the use of light weight cryptographic primitives. However, same are also not practical since all edge devices do not have requisite resources to implement these solutions. This paper proposes use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)/ machine learning in addressing the issues of authentication and authorization in edge devices. Proposed solution is based on fog computing model within a framework of a smart house but without reliance on computational capacity, storage or power of edge devices.

Every successful action performed in NTFS leads to update of $MFT. However, there is a chain or set of chains of transactions behind every single activity of NTFS. However, $MFT updation only shows the end product of action and corresponding chain or set of chains of transactions are not documented by it. $Logfile is the file which logs all said transactions. $MFT is a well researched area but $LogFile is relatively a less explored area. $LogFile was created by Microsoft for system recovery. However, it can also be used to get the blueprints of activities of NTFS as it logs all the transactions of NTFS. This paper deals with analysis of $LogFile used in Windows 7, its layout /structure, type of records and their decoding, explanation of information contained in these records and the techniques of reading it to extract blueprints of activities of NTFS.

The next paradigm change knocking at the door of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is Internet of Things (IoT). IoT, an evolving technology, is gaining popularity because of its basic idea: accessing the physical objects through internet. It has number of inbuilt benefits but there are numerous factors and bottlenecks which are delaying the worldwide implementation of this technology. Extensive research is being carried out by various countries and international bodies to addresses these challenges. This paper discusses proposed applications of IoT, implementation challenges, security aspects, the latest on research efforts and identifies the way forward.

Twenty first century has seen a new dimension of warfare; the cyber warfare. Developed countries have started exploiting the vulnerabilities of cyberspace to gain supremacy and influence over the rivals and over countries. Projects like PRISM and Boundless Information and malwares like Stuxnet and Disttrack have surprised the world by revealing how the cyberspace is being exploited by developed countries. Reliance of developing countries on a reliable and secure cyberspace do not match with that of western world but still few of their critical organizations like national, military and private sector hold significant share in cyberspace. Mostly, these developing countries rely on the products developed by western world. The dependency has inherent vulnerabilities and opportunities which place their critical organizations vulnerable to cyber exploitation. This research focuses on the cyber security challenges foreseen by the developing countries, specifically the threats crafted to avoid conventional security measures, by adversaries who have attained credible technical advancement. Finally, the solution is proposed for the developing countries to tackle the issue administratively, and organizationally.

Twenty first century has witnessed an explosive growth in use of computers and networks in every facet of life. With this explosive growth, new advancements in the field of secure computing, network technologies and systems have also been witnessed at an unprecedented rate. These developments have made existing digital forensics tools and techniques ineffective. Moreover, easy access to science of digital forensics and associated techniques has lead to use of anti-forensics measures by malicious actors to cover their traces. The paper highlights the impact of latest trends, technological advancement and use of anti-forensics measures on digital forensics along with the response of digital forensics to them. Shortfalls in the said response have also been covered along with recommended measures to address them. Moreover, historical perspective and established procedures of digital forensics are also discussed.