  Digital forensic science is very much still in its infancy, but is becoming
increasingly invaluable to investigators. A popular area for research is
seeking a standard methodology to make the digital forensic process accurate,
robust, and efficient. The first digital forensic process model proposed
contains four steps: Acquisition, Identification, Evaluation and Admission.
Since then, numerous process models have been proposed to explain the steps of
identifying, acquiring, analysing, storage, and reporting on the evidence
obtained from various digital devices. In recent years, an increasing number of
more sophisticated process models have been proposed. These models attempt to
speed up the entire investigative process or solve various of problems commonly
encountered in the forensic investigation. In the last decade, cloud computing
has emerged as a disruptive technological concept, and most leading enterprises
such as IBM, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have set up their own cloud-based
services. In the field of digital forensic investigation, moving to a
cloud-based evidence processing model would be extremely beneficial and
preliminary attempts have been made in its implementation. Moving towards a
Digital Forensics as a Service model would not only expedite the investigative
process, but can also result in significant cost savings - freeing up digital
forensic experts and law enforcement personnel to progress their caseload. This
paper aims to evaluate the applicability of existing digital forensic process
models and analyse how each of these might apply to a cloud-based evidence
processing paradigm.
