Högskolan i Skövde

With the continuous growth and adoption of smart homes, it is inevitable that smart home systems and devices become more exposed to crimes and criminals. Due to this fact, researchers and forensic experts have started to explore how to forensically utilise these systems and devices as witnesses and evidence sources to crimes that transpire in the home. The purpose and aim of this systematic literature review was therefore to identify which methods can be used to conduct a digital forensic investigation in smart home environments, and which challenges exist that might negatively affect, or hinder, the investigation. The search for previous research was performed with one defined search term, in six different databases, which ultimately resulted in the acceptance of 54 articles. These 54 articles were then qualitatively analysed using thematic analysis/coding, in order to produce this study’s results, and answered the research question that this study set out to answer. The qualitative analysis ultimately resulted in the identification of fifteen separate subthemes, across the two pre-defined themes. Five of these subthemes related to methods that can be deployed in digital forensic investigations within smart home environments, while the other ten related to challenges that may complicate or hinder investigations. Furthermore, the results ultimately revealed that the most common method was physical acquisition, and that the least common methods were software acquisition and cloud forensics, whilst the most common challenges were data location, and data issues, and the least common challenge was privacy issues.