Computer Access and Information Storage

Digital forensics is a branch that is over the recovery and investigation of materials found in digital devices, it gives a better understanding of the situation. Back before the computers, researchers used to investigate the situation through eyewitnesses, evidences, and trying to recreate what happened in that area. Digital devices are everywhere this day and age. “Computers and networks have become so ubiquitous in our society, such an integral part of our daily lives, that any investigation or legal dispute will likely involve some form of digital evidence.” Casey, 2009 Introduction. Through electronics, it can store the needed evidence to be used in the future.

This says that a person is able to found guilty of this offence when the defendant doesn’t have a lawful excuse and has destroyed or damaged another person property, this can be intentionally or recklessly.

Countries are regularly updating their legal guidelines to explain how digital evidence affects the digital constitution act. As a result, criminals developed their own tools to conceal their crimes creating real-world challenges for forensics investigators. Today, investigators need to learn from many standards of practice: researching from old to new computer systems, expand mechanical knowledge, create new developments and solutions for any investigation.

Dedicated system forensics specialists have trained intensively in investigating digital incidents to determine magnitude of the situation. Since digital crimes are committed on devices over multiple computing platforms, it is essential for forensic specialist to have a broad knowledge on which tools and techniques yield best results. The information collected from devices may serve as useful evidence in a legal matter; you never want the gathering of data to be an issue during the trial proceedings. Dedicated system forensic specialists understand the advantage in preparing a chain of custody report; it documents who oversaw data recovery or imaging, when & where collection took place and how & who stored data, which all add evidentiary value to findings. Individuals not skilled in the digital investigative process may inadvertently contaminate, overlook or destroy evidences, or simply forget to document the collection process. The smallest omission & fallacy in evidence collection or documentation can cause finds to

This paper will briefly identify and explain the psychological aspects of digital forensics. It will further examine the role of psychological profiling in digital forensic investigations. Lastly, it will examine the various stresses that digital crime investigations places on the digital forensics investigator.

Processing a crime scene is no easy task. Individuals who are trained to process and analyze these crime scenes cannot just walk into area of interest and commence handling items and taking items of possible implications of the situation. This holds true for a digital forensics investigator as well. Digital forensics investigators are looking for any possible digital evidence within the crime scene, but it’s not as simple as just finding a computer and taking it to the lab. “Digital evidence is information stored or transmitted in binary form that may be relied on in court. It can be found on a computer hard drive, a mobile phone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a CD, and a flash card in a digital camera, among other places” (Digital Evidence and Forensics, 2016). Identifying, preparing for the search, seizing the evidence, documentation, and chain of custody are all critical pieces of ensuring digital evidence is admissible in court.

There are areas in which a computer forensic investigator should know where to look for digital evidence for a criminal case.

To conclude with my case study, is worth to mention that in every forensic investigation is different and the circumstances and particularity of the case will conduct to the right forensic tools needed. Before start conducting a case every forensic investigator should gather how much information as possible from the suspected person or target system. In this case I focused my attention on my client's background information and technical knowledge of computer resources as well as security policies of her company and habits of usage. For all these reasons identifying the nature of the case before conducting any investigation will set the path and guide me in the selection of the best course of action to implement the right tools in my

Criminalization is a social phenomenon, which has haphazardly increased in last few years as Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has become an internal part of our daily lives. Atomic computer users and large corporate companies are increasingly dependent on services provided by ICT. ICT provides wide range of services that are utilized by individual systems as well as enormous database handling companies. For numerous reasons, something is bound to go wrong within the ICT environments which may include an intentional attack on different services provided by an organization. Digital forensics has evolved significantly in the direction of prosecuting such criminals. Making use of freely available information on internet and rapid technological advancements in ICT has contributed to performing easy investigations rather cumbersome.

Digital forensics is the process of uncovering and interpreting electronic data for use in a court of law. The main goal of the process is to preserve any evidence in its most original form while performing a structured investigation by collecting, identifying and validating the digital information which will be admissible in a court of law. To collect the document has to follow certain guidelines. United States v. Gourde (2006) and United States v. Zeigler (2007) are both great examples of cases to investigate the case. The primary goal of this document is to demonstrate the importance of digital forensics in solving criminal investigation. In the following paragraph two criminal cases are studied and analyzed.

We live in the information age; the way people communicate and practice business has changed tremendously. Everyday new technologies such as: operating systems, applications and automated software make our lives easier. As computer technologies continue to grow, the necessity of securing private information has not been an easy task for computer networking administrators and information security teams. For digital forensic investigators, staying on top of rapidly evolving technologies had become an everyday challenge. Therefore, there are several factors that play an important role to be successful in digital forensics career. First, you must become familiar with the newly OS platforms. Secondly, continuous testing, evaluation and research could expand the capabilities of a forensic lab. Lastly, forensic investigators should maintain connections with a

Forensics is a very important aspect of criminal justice. When a crime is committed and there aren’t any witnesses to the crime, forensic evidence may be the only thing that prosecutors have to work with. The use of forensics also helps identify the perpetrators of various cyber-crimes. Forensic specialists can search databases, IP addresses, and recover documents to determine who is responsible for a crime. As a result, this makes forensic labs a necessary investment for an organization.

Computer crimes can be defined as “the unauthorized use of a computer for personal gain, as in the illegal transfer of funds or to alter the data or property of others (Dictionary.com.)” Some examples of computer crimes are identity theft, transaction fraud, hacking, and piracy (Opposing News.) One aspect of a computer crime that I will cover in this exam is identity theft. The Department of Justice defines identity theft and identity fraud as “terms used to refer to all types of crime in which someone wrongfully obtains and uses another person's personal data in some way that involves fraud or deception, typically for economic gain (Department of Justice.)” Information that can be used to aid in the theft of your identity includes personally identifiable information (PII.) PII can be best described as “data that could potentially be used to identify a specific person;” which includes information such as your date of birth, social security number, address and mother’s maiden name (Rouse 2014.) In the wrong hands, this information enables someone to steal your identity and leave you financially responsible for the actions taken by the thief.

Forensic labs contain many bits of information, personal information and evidence will be stored on a PC because it’s safer and more practical. Whereas forensic material such as bodily parts will have to be stored within a refrigerated room which keeps the parts safe. The information on the PC will be update when concluding an investigation or when anything important changes, yet the actual forensic material will be used more frequently as these need to be assessed and examined. It’s extremely important to keep this information stored effectively as it connects to crime scene investigation as involves personal data and forensic material which needs to be kept

Not only is the evidence itself important in a digital forensic investigation, but the process followed in acquiring the evidence before presentation is crucial. Numerous court decisions have given guidelines to determine the standard required from the evidence collected and process followed in its