Drone Forensics - the next Frontier..

Drones or UAVs are slowly becoming ubiquitous. We are beginning to see them in all sorts of applications, from pizza delivery, medicine delivery etc to bomb delivery. They are extensively being used by criminals and citizens alike. They are used for espionage and wildlife photography. From smuggling to fire fighting. In fact weddings too seem incomplete without the aerial shots provided by drone mounted cameras. Seeing this upward trend when it comes to drones can digital forensics of drones be far behind?

Forensic examination of drones has progressed at a slightly lagging pace as compared to drones. Different drones are hitting the market and the forensic tool manufacturers are struggling to keep up. Some of these manufacturers are focused on phones and only support a few token drones. Some produce a well rounded dedicated Drone Forensics solution.?

What is needed from an extraction perspective is -?

• Drone extraction through USB connection
• Extraction through the network connection
• Extraction via the SD card
• Chip off extraction
• Drone App data extraction etc
• Deleted data extraction

However things don’t stop at extraction, an in-depth analysis is also required.?

There is a need for analysis of -

• Flight parameters such as speed, altitude, motor values etc. Can be viewed on a graph.?
• GPS data, coordinates, way points, flight time etc to determine movement, flight plan, start point and destination etc. Deleted data can be helpful in getting information related to previous missions.?
• Drones Position and Posture - it’s Yaw, Roll and Pitch need to be collected. All this provides useful intel when plotted on a timeline.?
• Media data - video, audio etc.?

All of these things help provide a forensic? integrated view of flight history and media data.?

As the usage of drones increases, investigation officers and forensic scientists will need to equip themselves with new drone forensic technology to handle this challenge.?