Scope of forensics in Grid computing - Vision and perspectives

Along with the evolution of Grid technology, the need to protect its resources from malicious activities is becoming more and more important. While robust security architecture provides deterrence, there never be a perfect security mechanism. The Grid security teams must be able to tackle the postattack situation and should be able to read the black-box of the events that led to the failure of the security architecture. Moreover, they should be able to collect the fingerprints of the culprits behind the attack so that necessary legal and judicial actions could be taken. It is only possible when the specific nature of the Grid is kept in mind while developing its forensics techniques. Grid is anewer paradigm and still lacks a number of security features. There is no other work in our knowledge that addresses forensics issues of the grid. This vacuum has overwhelmingly motivated us to take some initiative to fill this gap.