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This article introduces a robust metaverse forensic framework designed to facilitate the investigation of cybercrime within the dynamic and complex digital metaverse. In response to the growing potential for nefarious activities in this technological landscape, the framework is meticulously developed and aligned with international standardization, ensuring a comprehensive, reliable, and flexible approach to forensic investigations. Comprising seven distinct phases, including a crucial incident pre-response phase, the framework offers a detailed step-by-step guide that can be readily applied to any virtualized platform. Unlike previous studies that have primarily adapted the existing digital forensic methodologies, this proposed framework fills a critical research gap by providing a proactive and granular investigative process. The approach goes beyond mere adaptation, ensuring a comprehensive strategy that addresses the unique challenges posed by the metaverse environment. The seven phases cover a spectrum of forensic investigation, offering a thorough interpretation with careful consideration of real-life metaverse forensic scenarios. To validate its effectiveness, the proposed framework undergoes a rigorous evaluation against the appropriate ISO/IEC standards. Additionally, metaverse expert reviews, based on the task–technology fit theory, contribute valuable insights. The overall assessment confirms the framework's adherence to forensic standards, making it a reliable guide for investigators navigating the complexities of cybercrime in the metaverse. This comprehensive metaverse forensic framework provides investigators with a detailed and adaptable tool to address a wide range of cybercrime incidents within the evolving virtualized landscape. Furthermore, its stepwise guidance ensures a thorough and reliable investigation process, offering significant contributions to proactive security measures in the face of emerging challenges in the metaverse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can organisations be forensically ready? As organisations are bound to be criticised in the digitally developing world, they must ensure that they are forensically ready. The readiness of digital forensics ensures compliance in an organisation's legal, regulatory, and operational structure. Several digital forensic investigative methods and duties are based on specific technological designs. The present study is the first to address the core principles of digital forensic studies, namely, reconnaissance, reliability, and relevance. It reassesses the investigative duties and establishes eight separate positions and their obligations in a digital forensics' investigation. A systematic literature review revealed a gap in the form of a missing comprehensive direction for establishing a digital forensic framework for ethical purposes. Digital forensic readiness refers to the ability of a business to collect and respond to digital evidence related to security incidents at low levels of cost and interruption to existing business operations. This study established a digital forensic framework through a systematic literature review to ensure that organisations are forensically ready to conduct an efficient forensic investigation and to cover ethical aspects. Furthermore, this study conducted a focus group evaluation through focus group discussions to provide insights into the framework. Lastly, a roadmap was provided for integrating the system seamlessly into zero-knowledge data collection technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces a robust metaverse forensic framework designed to facilitate the investigation of cybercrime within the dynamic and complex digital metaverse. In response to the growing potential for nefarious activities in this technological landscape, the framework is meticulously developed and aligned with international standardization, ensuring a comprehensive, reliable, and flexible approach to forensic investigations. Comprising seven distinct phases, including a crucial incident pre-response phase, the framework offers a detailed step-by-step guide that can be readily applied to any virtualized platform. Unlike previous studies that have primarily adapted the existing digital forensic methodologies, this proposed framework fills a critical research gap by providing a proactive and granular investigative process. The approach goes beyond mere adaptation, ensuring a comprehensive strategy that addresses the unique challenges posed by the metaverse environment. The seven phases cover a spectrum of forensic investigation, offering a thorough interpretation with careful consideration of real-life metaverse forensic scenarios. To validate its effectiveness, the proposed framework undergoes a rigorous evaluation against the appropriate ISO/IEC standards. Additionally, metaverse expert reviews, based on the task–technology fit theory, contribute valuable insights. The overall assessment confirms the framework’s adherence to forensic standards, making it a reliable guide for investigators navigating the complexities of cybercrime in the metaverse. This comprehensive metaverse forensic framework provides investigators with a detailed and adaptable tool to address a wide range of cybercrime incidents within the evolving virtualized landscape. Furthermore, its stepwise guidance ensures a thorough and reliable investigation process, offering significant contributions to proactive security measures in the face of emerging challenges in the metaverse.

The Metaverse is currently becoming a massive technology platform and is considered to be the next significant development in global technology and business landscapes. The Metaverse is a digital platform that people can enter or transport virtual items with a device as a medium, implemented as virtual but very similar to the real world through the concept of the digital twin as used in smart cities. The Metaverse is currently in its infancy but is developing gradually. However, the potential threat of crime in this new world already has become a concern. As the Metaverse becomes more similar to the real world, the events that occur in it can affect the real world as well. Therefore, digital forensic research on the Metaverse is necessary to investigate crimes occurring in the Metaverse, such as money laundering, virtual burglaries, virtual theft, and fraud. In this paper, we present the conceptual architecture of the Metaverse and discuss what are termed metacrimes, crimes that may occur within the Metaverse, and address the need for research on digital forensic investigations of the Metaverse. Furthermore, we propose a Metaverse forensic framework for the first time; it consists of four phases based on the digital forensic guidance of NIST. These are data collection, examination and retrieval of evidence, analysis, and reporting. In the framework, we provide three different procedures in the data collection phase and examination phase by dividing them into three categories: user, service, and the Metaverse platform. Finally, we discuss the challenge of digital forensic investigations in the Metaverse from three standpoints: data possession, anti-forensics, and privacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]