Digital Forensics and Cyber Crime. 9th International Conference, ICDF2C 2017, Prague, Czech Republic, October 9-11, 2017, Proceedings

Research Article

Open Source Forensics for a Multi-platform Drone System

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  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.1007/978-3-319-73697-6_6,
        author={Thomas Barton and M. Azhar},
        title={Open Source Forensics for a Multi-platform Drone System},
        proceedings={Digital Forensics and Cyber Crime. 9th International Conference, ICDF2C 2017, Prague, Czech Republic, October 9-11, 2017, Proceedings},
        proceedings_a={ICDF2C},
        year={2018},
        month={1},
        keywords={Drone forensics Open source Mobile forensics DJI Phantom Android UAV Anti-forensics},
        doi={10.1007/978-3-319-73697-6_6}
    }
    
  • Thomas Barton
    M. Azhar
    Year: 2018
    Open Source Forensics for a Multi-platform Drone System
    ICDF2C
    Springer
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-73697-6_6
Thomas Barton1,*, M. Azhar1,*
  • 1: Canterbury Christ Church University
*Contact email: tb1150@canterbury.ac.uk, hannan.azhar@canterbury.ac.uk

Abstract

Drones or UAVs (Unmanned Air Vehicles) have a great potential to cause concerns over privacy, trespassing and safety. This is due to the increasing availability of drones and their capabilities of travelling large distances and taking high resolution photographs and videos. From a criminological perspective, drones are an ideal method of smuggling, physically removing the operator from the act. It is for this reason that drones are also being utilised as deadly weapons in conflict areas. The need for forensic research to successfully analyse captured drones is rising. The challenges that drones present include the need to interpret flight data and tackling the multi-platform nature of drone systems. This paper reports the extraction and interpretation of important artefacts found in the recorded flight logs on both the internal memory of the UAV and the controlling application, as well as analysis of media, logs and other important files for identifying artefacts. In addition, some basic scripts will be utilised to demonstrate the potential for developing fully fledged forensics tools applicable to other platforms. Tests of anti-forensics measures will also be reported.