The complexity of internet of things forensics: A state-of-the-art review

Abstract The rapid growth and usefulness of Internet of Things (IoT) has seen it being deployed in critical and strategic infrastructure sectors like healthcare, transport, agriculture, home automation, and smart industries among many others. The benefits of comfort and reliability of IoT technologies to human beings have brought with them security concerns. This is due to its large-scale connectivity and over reliance on the internet for communication making it susceptible to cyberattacks. Digital forensics experts face a daunting task of handling these cyberattacks because of the unique and complex challenges posed by IoT. Recently, researchers have been drawn to finding solutions to these challenges, however, this is still in its infancy. This paper carries out a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) of the current research advancements in IoT forensics. We define key IoT fundamentals, IoT applications, the need for IoT forensics, identify the key factors affecting IoT forensics, and review the practicality of the available IoT forensics frameworks, models, and methodologies. The SLR reveals research gaps indicating that most of the current research is more theoretical than practical. There is a need for more practical approaches to tackle the unique IoT forensics challenges. Finally, for future research directions from the SLR, we have highlighted and discussed the open challenges and requirements for IoT forensics.