The Role Of Cyber Security In Crime Scene Investigation: A Cyber–Physical Systems Engineering Framework For Enhancing Physical Evidence And Its Admissibility

Modern crime scenes increasingly operate as cyber–physical systems in which physical evidence is tightly coupled with digital infrastructure, embedded devices, and networked environments. Conventional crime scene investigation methods are insufficient to address threats arising from remote access, data manipulation, and system-level vulnerabilities. This review presents a step-by-step, technology-driven framework that integrates cyber security engineering principles into crime scene investigation to enhance the integrity, reliability, and admissibility of physical evidence. The proposed approach models the crime scene as a cyber–physical system and applies threat modeling, secure system isolation, forensic data acquisition pipelines, cryptographic integrity verification, and cyber–physical correlation mechanisms. Emphasis is placed on reproducibility, system verification, and automated chain-of-custody controls from an engineering perspective.