Email Security Issues, Tools, and Techniques Used in Investigation
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper presetns:
1- email forensic incidents and the tools and techniques available in literature
2- major threats to email as well as techniques to mitigate them
3- A comparison study was made of several techniques and analysis tools used in email forensics
4- compares the available software tools for email forensics based on factors such as language interface, user interface, programming language, creation of image files, calculation of hash value, cost, and advantages.
Although paper is written well but some concerns are need to be address:
1- Enumerate problem statements, contributions, limitations and future research directions to make it easy readable.
2- Explore more references if possible make it upto 150.
3- Figures quality is less, improve it.
miner revision required
Author Response
Dear expert,
We are thankful for your reconstructive suggestion. Please see the attachment for responses to all your valuable comments.
Regards,
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors, I congratulate you for approaching such an important issue as email security from a forensic perspective.
The review has a lot of potential to be published, however I consider it difficult to read, it lacks reviews that support the scientific nature of the protocols and architectures, which are the basis of email. I do not see detailed systematization of the reviews, where they point to each of them.
However, after considering the following observations, I consider that it could be published:
1.In the introduction, it would be good to include data and statistics on the use of email through the history of its use.
2. Is Figure 1 your own? if not, please reference.
Including an outline of the SMTP, IMAP4, POP3 etc. protocols will help a lot so that the reader can better understand the protocols and it will also make the reading of the manuscript easier, I see that they have problems of clarity in the writing and integration of their contents .
3. Possibly missing in the review were many articles that presented the architectural and scientific bases and foundations of the different encryption protocols, architectures and algorithms.
4.Very poor description of Email Forensics Software Tools.
5.Improve the format of the references, especially 3, 4 and 5.
Greetings
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear expert,
We are thankful for your reconstructive suggestion. Please see the attachment for responses to all your valuable comments.
Regards,
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Overall paper is well written, only have these following observations.
The study used PRISMA guidelines to systematically search the Saudi digital library and Google Scholar databases for papers on email forensics tools, cybersecurity threats, and the email environment, published between January 2018 and December 2022, in English and available online. Overall methodology looks appropriate.
Improve your conclusion by emphasize the significance of ongoing research and development in email forensics to effectively address emerging threats and adapt to evolving technologies, ensuring the field remains up-to-date and effective in combating email-related crimes. Highlight the importance of selecting the most appropriate email forensic tool based on specific case requirements, acknowledging that continuous advancements and the diverse needs of organizations and individuals necessitate careful consideration in tool selection for successful investigations.
Author Response
Dear expert,
We are thankful for your reconstructive suggestion. Please see the attachment for responses to all your valuable comments.
Regards,
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
This paper reviews security in email systems. the main weaknesses are:
w1: please update the caption of figure 1, the current caption is at the first line of a page.
w2: advantages in table 4 and table 5 can be summarized with few words, or more details in paper text.
w3: authors discuss data tampering in several places of the paper. in the future research section, it would be better if authors reference and discuss the future of storing email data of ledger database (e.g., LedgerDB) to provide tamper-evidence and non-repudiation features.
w4: in the empirical section, it would be better if authors provide some experimental data of the systems.
ok
Author Response
Dear expert,
We are thankful for your reconstructive suggestion. Please see the attachment for responses to all your valuable comments.
Regards,
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors, I see that you have taken all my suggestions into account, your manuscript is ready.
Author Response
Dear expert,
We are thankful for your reconstructive suggestion and your valuable comments to improve the paper quality.
Regards,
Reviewer 4 Report
the authors added some discussion of centralized ledger database (e.g., LedgerDB) in the future work. However, they didn't add it in reference, which is needed for readers. authors can add reference of LedgerDB's paper on VLDB 2020.
ok
Author Response
Dear expert,
We are thankful for your reconstructive suggestion. Please see the attachment for responses to all your valuable comments.
Regards,
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 4 Report
The authors revised the paper based on reviewer's suggestion.
ok
