Volume 15 , Issue 1 , PP: 197-210, 2025 | Cite this article as | XML | Html | PDF | Full Length Article
Robinson Tombari Sibe 1 * , David Bekom 2
Doi: https://doi.org/10.54216/JCIM.150115
Globally, drones have become increasingly popular. While there are legitimate uses of drones, there are also complaints of increasing deployment for illegal activities. With the increasing caseloads of unethical, illegal, and criminal deployments, investigators have become more interested in conducting forensic examination of drones, to reconstruct events and provide answers to key investigative questions. This technical case study is a digital forensic investigation of a DJI Phantom III Professional drone to obtain possible evidential artifacts. The paper outlines the procedures and tools that were employed to acquire, preserve, analyse, and present digital evidence from the drone and its associated accessories. The paper also discussed the current state of the body of knowledge and the challenges in the field of drone forensics. An outcome of this study was the development of a drone forensic investigation model, inspired by the DFRWS Framework. The result of this investigation produced valuable evidential artifacts deconstructing vital flight information and other parameters of the drone, obtained in a forensically sound and legally defensible manner.
Drone forensics , drone investigation , digital forensics , UAV investigation , digital investigation , mobile forensics , cyber forensics , cybersecurity
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