Drone Forensics

Dear Readers,

We’re extremely proud to present to you the newest issue of eForensics Magazine - Drone Forensics!

Drones are quickly becoming a cybersecurity nightmare, so it's better to know what's going on with them!

In this issue - devoted exclusively to the topic of unmanned aerial vehicles - you will find articles on extracting data from UAV, hacking a wifi printer with a drone, vulnerabilities and attacks on UAVs, a UAV forensic case study, the article entitled “Why is everyone looking up”, Forensic Evaluation of Drone Technology and more!

We have also an article on robot and cyborg forensics, an automated digital forensics future, artificial intelligence and security issues raised in an e-commerce platform.

We invite you on a flight… drone flight!

Thanks to all authors, reviewers and proofreaders for participating in this project.

Have a nice read!

Regards,

Dominika Zdrodowska

and the eForensics Magazine Editorial Team

 

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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Forensic Evaluation of Drone Technology

by Daniel Owen

The project begins to look into the broad range of UAVs that are likely to be encountered by police forces in the UK, specifically targeting the more budget end of the spectrum whilst still having all the functionality required to commit a range of crimes. The project focuses on post criminal activity analysis of the UAV and controller and while there is some discussion of commercial counter UAV tools it is not the focus of this project. One example of this analysis comes from media files stored on the drone and the kind of information that can be gathered from them through metadata. Using a purely practical, experimentation and analysis based approach, a thorough examination was made of both the UAV and its controlling Android and iOS devices. The project concludes that metadata is the best way to obtain information regarding flights, particularly where the Bebop’s “Drone Academy” feature is disabled as it specifically states that this will track your drone’s flights, though there is an analysis of the files created by the “Drone Academy” feature.

Hacking a wifi printer with a drone

by Carlos Manzo Trujillo

Flying a drone equipped with an Android smartphone to perform a remote scanning and access to unencrypted wireless office printers will be our goal in this article. After identifying an open printer’s wireless network, the app established a similar wireless access point on the cellphone residing on the drone hovering within Wi-Fi reception range of the office building. The app tricked the office staff to assume they had sent a print job to the departmental printer while in reality they had “printed a document into the smartphone”, so to speak. The smartphone later sent the print job to the cloud via its 3G/4G connectivity and placed it in the attacker’s Dropbox. To cover their tracks, the attacker’s app could resend the print job back to the printer so that the office staff would be able to collect the printout, albeit with some reasonable delay that should not draw suspicion.

When Theory Meets Reality - A UAV Forensic Case Study

By Alan Roder

When I was approached to write this article, I considered the formal approach. Possibly the examination of some of the less publicised UAVs we have had in our possession, or potentially re-visiting the UAV forensic guidelines I co-authored in 2018 to determine if they had maintained their robustness with the advance in technology. In the dynamic field we work in it is important that we provide to our peers a realistic and honest insight into the successes, challenges and obstacles we face in the field of Digital Forensics.  As a result of this, the following article is a first-hand approach to what Digital Forensics means to me, which is the search for new challenges and the belief that any examiner has the capability to overcome any obstacle if given the opportunity.

An automated digital forensics future

By Justin Boncaldo

Dead-box digital forensic cases are becoming more convoluted with the recent exponential uptick of digital device inclusion into daily life. Acceptance rates of new technology in homes, businesses, cars, and pockets can be both wonderful and upsetting news for analysts. Although the demand for more devices means more potential forensically-relevant data for a case, it also often means more hours required for an investigation. Private sector casework usually revolves around a client’s budget. Once the budget limit is reached, it can mean the end of the investigation. As device counts expand and tech product security become a greater focus of manufacturers, it may soon be more difficult to balance the same budget with all required avenues of analysis. I strongly believe the best response, and likely resolution, to this issue is the automation of the forensic process.

The Emerging World of Drone Forensics: Extracting Data from an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

By Rob Attoe

Digital forensics investigators have an important role to play in assisting law enforcement agencies when it comes to the emerging world of drone forensics. When a drone is captured, investigators need to extract data from these complex technological devices so they can develop a trail of clues that might lead them to a suspect.

Vulnerabilities and Attacks on UAVs/Drone

by Tomiko Evans

UAVs/Drones have been around for decades, utilized by the military for reconnaissance and spying on their adversaries, where it had no use for civilians.  As time progressed and technology became more advanced, drones were being created for civilian pleasures. As this commercial aircraft have been a huge success in the military, and now civilians are jumping into this great escapade, cybersecurity was an afterthought.  

Digital forensics in robots and cyborgs

Claudio Joel Brito Lóssio & Coriolano Aurélio Almeida Camargo Santos

The era of the fourth industrial revolution is what we are living, with robotics, artificial intelligence, internet of things and other technologies increasingly present in the daily lives of people and companies, which is no different with digital forensics. Imagine a digital forensic investigation done by a possible robot endowed with artificial intelligence for such a practice, could it be ethically executed? Who will be held responsible in case of error? Let's look at a second case: Can an expert perform analysis on the storage device of a robot or a cyborg? Will this analysis violate the right to privacy and intimacy of those involved?

Why is everyone looking up?

By Dr. Stephen Pearson

In this article the word ‘drone’ will cover recreational small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS): drones that would not draw attention being carried by a person in public, yet have the capability to cause damage or gather intelligence. Nano drones are a part of the conversation in this article, but they are limited in their functional roles by their weight carrying abilities. This article focuses on a very specific component of the collection cycle, one that is often overlooked, or assumed to be executed by first responders. This component is the initial observation and control of the drone by the first responder.

Security issues raised in an e-commerce platform: is it privacy disruption?

by Dr. P. Mary Jeyanthi & Anshul Jaiswal

Privacy disruption is a threat in the current e-age era and especially in the e-commerce platform, there is no matter of source when one observes. The platform we are using for e-commerce is not just an online platform for buying and selling of goods but much more than that. From being a market of local sellers to providing services of intangible goods, like banking services and government documentation, e-commerce has evolved a lot from its basics. As technology is progressing, new technologies like cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoT), and artificial intelligence are gaining momentum in today’s market. Times are gone when ARPANET was used between the students of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory to sell cannabis. Now it is the time of chatbots, and drones are used to deliver the products. As technology is developing, the chances of hackers hacking the sites are also increasing.

5 Ways That AI is Enabling More Efficient Forensic Investigations Investigations Investigations

By Sarah Hargreaves

The process of how we conduct digital forensics investigations makes this an industry that is ripe for disruption by Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. In all significant investigations, forensic examiners and law enforcement professionals have a large and often complex data set that must be collected, reviewed and analyzed. Meanwhile, most agencies have been unable to secure budget increases that are sufficient for them to add the human and IT resources needed to handle these rising demands.