The modern crime scene is no longer confined to obvious, physical evidence like broken glass or shell casings. In the age of the “smart home,” seemingly innocuous devices that are networked, mounted on a wall or strapped on a wrist can play a key role in solving — and committing — crimes. As the number of connected devices worldwide is projected to exceed 40 billion by 2034, The University of Texas at San Antonio is leading a national initiative to ensure law enforcement can keep pace. Through the Internet of Things (IoT) National Training and Technical Assistance Program, cybersecurity experts are bridging a critical gap in digital forensics, providing investigators with the skills to extract evidence from everything from Ring doorbells to robotic vacuums. “The integration of IoT devices into our daily life has accelerated at a pace that law enforcement training infrastructure has not matched,” said Raymond Choo, the project’s principal investigator and associate dean for graduate studies in the College of AI, Cyber and Computing. Choo also holds the Cloud Technology Endowed Professorship in the Department of Information Systems and Cybersecurity. “A decade ago, these devices would not have appeared on an investigator’s evidence checklist. Today, they are everywhere,” Choo added. Jean Costello, one of the lead trainers in the courses, noted that IoT evidence was “first used in a 2014 Canadian legal case.” Police investigating a murder noticed an Amazon Echo in the home and subpoenaed Amazon for its audio and transcript data. “Another IoT device was used in a 2015 murder case in Arkansas,” she added. This opened the doors to a new subset of digital forensics. Examples of modern IoT devices that can store vital evidence include smart watches, Apple AirTags, smart glasses and VR headsets, which could help with building a chronological timeline and