Cloud Forensics

Cloud evidence collection, API forensics, container forensics, and investigation.

Overview

Cloud forensics investigates incidents in cloud environments.

Evidence Sources

AWS Forensics

# Snapshot EBS volume
aws ec2 create-snapshot \
  --volume-id vol-1234567890abcdef0 \
  --description "Forensic snapshot"

# Create forensic instance
aws ec2 run-instances \
  --image-id ami-forensic \
  --instance-type t3.micro \
  --security-group-ids sg-forensic

# Copy snapshot to forensic account
aws ec2 copy-snapshot \
  --source-region us-east-1 \
  --source-snapshot-id snap-1234567890abcdef0 \
  --destination-region us-west-2

Container Forensics

# Capture container filesystem
docker export container_id > container.tar

# Analyze running container
docker exec -it container_id /bin/sh

# Capture container logs
docker logs container_id > container.log

Evidence Collection

# Cloud evidence collection
def collect_cloud_evidence(account_id):
    evidence = {
        "cloudtrail": get_cloudtrail_logs(account_id),
        "vpc_flow": get_vpc_flow_logs(account_id),
        "config": get_config_history(account_id),
        "guarduty": get_guardduty_findings(account_id)
    }
    return evidence

Investigation Steps

1. Isolate → Contain the incident
2. Collect → Gather cloud evidence
3. Preserve → Secure evidence
4. Analyze → Investigate logs
5. Report → Document findings

Best Practices

1. Enable logging — CloudTrail, Flow Logs
2. Automate collection — Lambda functions
3. Secure storage — Encrypted buckets
4. Chain of custody — Document everything
5. Cross-account — Isolate forensics

Practice

Investigate a cloud security incident using AWS CloudTrail logs.