SoK: Exploring the State of the Art and the Future Potential of Artificial Intelligence in Digital Forensic Investigation

TL;DR

This paper reviews how artificial intelligence can address digital forensic backlogs by summarizing current tools, discussing challenges, and exploring future potential to improve case processing efficiency.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of AI applications in digital forensics, highlighting current tools, challenges, and future opportunities for enhancing forensic investigations.

Findings

AI-based tools expedite evidence processing

AI increases digital forensic case capacity

Challenges include data quality and algorithm transparency

Abstract

Multi-year digital forensic backlogs have become commonplace in law enforcement agencies throughout the globe. Digital forensic investigators are overloaded with the volume of cases requiring their expertise compounded by the volume of data to be processed. Artificial intelligence is often seen as the solution to many big data problems. This paper summarises existing artificial intelligence based tools and approaches in digital forensics. Automated evidence processing leveraging artificial intelligence based techniques shows great promise in expediting the digital forensic analysis process while increasing case processing capacities. For each application of artificial intelligence highlighted, a number of current challenges and future potential impact is discussed.