Towards adapting metamodelling technique for database forensics investigation domain

Abstract

Threats which come from database insiders or database outsiders have formed a big challenge to the protection of integrity and confidentiality in many database systems. To overcome this situation a new domain called a Database Forensic (DBF) has been introduced to specifically investigate these dynamic threats which have posed many problems in Database Management Systems (DBMS) of many organizations. DBF is a process to identify, collect, preserve, analyse, reconstruct and document all digital evidences caused by this challenge. However, until today, this domain is still lacks having a standard and generic knowledge base for its forensic investigation methods / tools due to many issues and challenges in its complex processes. Therefore, this paper will reveal an approach adapted from a software engineering domain called metamodelling which will unify these DBF complex knowledge processes into an artifact, a metamodel (DBF Metamodel). In future, the DBF Metamodel could benefit many DBF investigation users such as database investigators, stockholders, and other forensic teams in offering various possible solutions for their problem domain.