A Forensic Look at Bitcoin Cryptocurrency

The increased use of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin among private users and somebusinesses has opened a new avenue of research in the field of digital forensics involvingcryptocurrencies. Since the creation of Bitcoin in 2008, cryptocurrencies have begun tomake a presence in the world of ecommerce. Cryptography serves as the underlyingfoundation for Bitcoin, which gives it the benefits of confidentiality, integrity, nonrepudiationand authentication. Having been designed and built upon the foundation ofthese four objectives makes Bitcoin an attractive alternative to mainstream currency andprovides users with the benefits of payment freedom, security, very low fees, and fewerrisks for merchants. Tools such as Internet Evidence Finder have the capability to recoversome Bitcoin artifacts. However, because the cryptocurrency technology is relativelynew, very little research has been dedicated to what other forensic artifacts are left on auser's system as a result of Bitcoin, what those artifacts mean and how to recover them inorder to build a successful case involving Bitcoin. This research seeks to ascertain whatforensic artifacts are recoverable from a user's system with Bitcoin wallet applicationsinstalled and actively used. Furthermore, this research seeks to recover any evidence ofBitcoin mining that would be present on a user's system due to the use of such softwareor applications.