Digital forensics in cyber security - recent trends, threats, and opportunities

The rapid technological advancement has led the entire world to shift towards digital domain. However, this transition has also result in the emergence of cybercrimes and security breach incidents that threatens the privacy and security of the users. Therefore, this paper aimed at examining the use of digital forensics in countering cybercrimes, which has been a critical breakthrough in cybersecurity. The paper has analyzed the most recent trends in digital forensics, which include cloud forensics, social media forensics, and IoT forensics. These technologies are helping the cybersecurity professionals to use the digital traces left by the data storage and processing to keep data safe, while identifying the cybercriminals. However, the research has also observed specific threats to digital forensics, which include technical, operational and personnel-related challenges. The high complexity of these systems, large volume of data, chain of custody, the integrity of personnel, and the validity and accuracy of digital forensics are major threats to its large-scale use. Nevertheless, the paper has also observed the use of USB forensics, intrusion detection and artificial intelligence as major opportunities for digital forensics that can make the processes easier, efficient, and safe.