Automation for digital forensics: Towards a classification model for the community

The current state of automation in digital forensics remains insufficiently defined. While the complexity of automated tools and methods has evolved significantly (e.g., from basic parsers to the integration of advanced techniques), it remains challenging to pinpoint the field’s overall progress or compare methods. A first step towards a solution was the work ‘Automation for digital forensics: Towards a definition for the community’ which defines automation but cannot categorize various methods. This work aims to address this gap and presents a first classification model for automation for digital forensics. Therefore, we analyzed automation classification schemes from different disciplines (e.g., cars) and assessed various model possibilities as well as characteristics. We conclude that a 2-dimensional model with the axis ‘decision’ and ‘level of automation’ is most appropriate and provide an overview table with examples.