  The increasing prevalence of Internet of Things (IoT) devices has made it
inevitable that their pertinence to digital forensic investigations will
increase into the foreseeable future. These devices produced by various vendors
often posses limited standard interfaces for communication, such as USB ports
or WiFi/Bluetooth wireless interfaces. Meanwhile, with an increasing mainstream
focus on the security and privacy of user data, built-in encryption is becoming
commonplace in consumer-level computing devices, and IoT devices are no
exception. Under these circumstances, a significant challenge is presented to
digital forensic investigations where data from IoT devices needs to be
analysed. This work explores the electromagnetic (EM) side-channel analysis
literature for the purpose of assisting digital forensic investigations on IoT
devices. EM side-channel analysis is a technique where unintentional
electromagnetic emissions are used for eavesdropping on the operations and data
handling of computing devices. The non-intrusive nature of EM side-channel
approaches makes it a viable option to assist digital forensic investigations
as these attacks require, and must result in, no modification to the target
device. The literature on various EM side-channel analysis attack techniques
are discussed - selected on the basis of their applicability in IoT device
investigation scenarios. The insight gained from the background study is used
to identify promising future applications of the technique for digital forensic
analysis on IoT devices - potentially progressing a wide variety of currently
hindered digital investigations.
