REU Site: Digital Forensic Research on Emerging Computing Environments

Digital forensics revolves around the definition of forensics as a science serving the law. The technical skills in this area are in high demand in industry and government. Considering the evolving landscape of computing infrastructure (e.g., cyber-physical systems, cloud, and cryptocurrency), digital forensics necessitates ongoing research efforts to address emerging and significant challenges in this field. This REU site aims to provide undergraduate students with early research experience in the field of digital forensics within the context of computer science. It will help the students identify their interest in digital forensics, realize their research potential, and encourage them to pursue graduate studies. The REU site will have a strong focus on research experience and provide a comfortable and inspiring environment for students to learn about the process of academic research. It provides a pathway for undergraduate students to pursue graduate studies after completing this research program. Several sectors, including the military, civil law enforcement, corporate, and private sector communities, all benefit from the highly skilled and much-desired digital forensics workforce. In this REU site, the students will pursue their research projects under the supervision of faculty members. The projects will develop new forensic capabilities to help law enforcement agencies solve cyber-crimes, including new forensic data acquisition and analysis for emerging computing environments such as cyber-physical systems and the cloud. The students will experience a comprehensive research cycle, encompassing a literature review to justify the novelty of their research projects, as well as design, implementation, evaluation, and dissemination of research outcomes. Their projects will primarily focus on automated data acquisition and analysis of digital artifacts in computing infrastructure, including cloud computing and system virtualization. The students will develop new forensic techniques and tools in emerging research areas of digital forensics, including memory forensics, industrial control systems, blockchain forensics, and forensic analysis of IoT devices. The outcome of the REU projects will contribute to the health, safety, and economic well-being of our society by enhancing state-of-the-art digital forensics tools and techniques in emerging computing environments, thereby fighting cyber-crimes more effectively. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.