Digital Forensics: A Survey of Emerging Threats, Challenges, and Opportunities in Smart Grids

The era of digital technology has been introduced into the environment of the smart grid, which in turn increases its vulnerability to cyber threats due to the interconnected and cyber physical nature. These potential cyberthreats may interrupt the process of energy distribution, which may also jeopardize the essential grid infrastructure, causing enormous damage. The existing digital forensic frameworks are not equipped to address digital forensic issues within the complex smart grid environment. In this work, we present an assessment of the limitations of the existing digital forensic frameworks and technologies over smart grid settings. The main emphasis of this article is to analyze the unique issues in the smart grid network by conducting a systematic review of the literature. In addition, some of the real-life case studies have been discussed in the quest to demonstrate how other frameworks have been exploited to address these pressing challenges.