In digital forensics, ensuring the secure storage of digital evidence is crucial. This paper introduces a new method that uses advanced encryption and key generation techniques to protect digital evidence throughout an investigation. Cloud forensics, a modern approach to digital forensics, aims to safeguard evidence from online hacking. However, storing all evidence in one central location can reduce its reliability. To address this, we propose a digital forensics architecture for cloud platforms, specifically Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). This architecture is designed to make it easier to collect and protect digital evidence while maintaining its integrity and origin in cloud computing environments. Our approach, called DFA-AOKGE (Digital Forensic Architecture with Authentication and Optimal Key Generation Encryption), uses a decentralized system to distribute data across multiple peers for collection and secure storage. For authentication, the DFA-AOKGE model uses a Secure Block Verification Mechanism (SBVM). It also generates secret keys using an Enhanced Equilibrium Optimizer (EEO) model. Data is encrypted using a multikey homomorphic encryption (MHE) method and then stored on the cloud server. Simulations show that the DFA-AOKGE method outperforms other recent approaches in various performance measures.

Keywords: Secure storage, digital forensics, encryption, key generation, cloud forensics, online hacking, centralized evidence, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), data integrity, digital objects, forensic investigations, Authentication with Optimal Key Generation Encryption (DFA-AOKGE), BC-distributed design, Secure Block Verification Mechanism (SBVM), Enhanced Equilibrium Optimizer (EEO), multikey homomorphic encryption (MHE), cloud server, simulation results, performance measures