Digital Vehicle Forensics: challenges and opportunities

Modern vehicles are becoming an important source of evidence in digital forensic investigations, and forensic analysis of systems installed in vehicles, is an emerging area of research. Vehicles are equipped with a large number of sensors that collect data about the vehicle itself and its immediate environment, as well as the behavior of the driver. These can be an important source of digital evidence in investigations where there is a need to clarify the dynamics of a road accident and the behavior of a vehicle and its crew before, during and after the accident, when the vehicle is involved in a crime scene or in a terrorist attack. This paper was created to help the digital forensics community understand the application of digital forensics to major electronic systems in vehicles. It describes the main challenges associated with forensics investigations on vehicle data in the various main phases that characterize digital forensics making reference to both traditional digital forensics tools and also some specialist equipment that can be used to find the evidences from vehicles. The types of electronic components and vehicle devices considered of interest as sources of evidence are: Infotainment Systems, on-board Electronic Control Units (ECUs), Event Data Recorders (EDRs), black boxes, and eCAll. unit.