The Best Forensics Software Tool

The protection of evidence is crucial as the evidence is used for court proceedings or forensic testing. There are many ways to protect evidence including; proper packaging, sealing, collecting and identifying items (The Physical Evidence Handbook 8th Edition). There are guidelines in which forensic scientists should follow in order to package evidence. Packaging evidence protects the integrity and continuity by keeping it safe so it is not contaminated, tampered with or altered. The protection of evidence also prevents the evidence from being lost and minimises deterioration (Terry Spear, John Rush, Jerry Massetti, Jim Weigand and Mark

When was the last time she accessed her computer? What is her background in computers, what is her skill level? I need some background on the former employee, her computer habits and activities prior to the files being found on her computer. I must collect digital evidence while keeping the data unaltered, first thing. This data will be used later in the prosecution of the case. This can be done through calculating and recording an evidence file. Next is imaging of the computer media with a write-blocking tool. I must keep the chain of custody. The computer's RAM is examined for evidence. During the examination step, verify and catalog the presence and integrity of the original evidence and any copies. An analysis is made with specialized equipment to find out exactly what's stored on the digital media. This includes a manual review of all materials found on the media, a review of the Windows registry, techniques to crack passwords and retrieve protected data, keyword searches and extraction of email and pictures for further review.

Computers are common tools used by the culprits behind white-collar crimes. In order to find “culprits,” the forensic accountant will need to be able to dig deep into the company’s computer system. However, without the proper equipment, that process can prove to be very difficult. To facilitate the preservation, collection, analysis, and documentation of evidence, forensic accountants can use specialized software and computer hardware.

Investigating a cyberstalking case presents a unique set of challenges. Evidence can be found in digital form, so it can be protected from being lost or damaged, or the complete opposite can be true and it can be easily lost, damaged, corrupted, or rendered inadmissible in court due to flawed forensic gathering practices. It is important, with cases involving digital media that the same procedures be followed when it comes to collecting evidence. Chain of custody documentation must still be kept. The right software must be used to directly copy any hardware seized or searched for investigative purposes.

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.

Practitioners make user of what is called a “forensic kit” in order to image or procure the files from the storage devices in possession of the custodian. Reactive responses are also known as “incident response”. As mentioned in a paper by SANS Institute, a good incident response procedure can be broken down into some basic steps [6] – planning and preparation, incident detection, initial response, response strategy formulation, forensic backups, investigation, security measure implementation, network monitoring, recovery and reporting. More details about each step can be found in the paper. To accommodate these requirements, the forensic kit includes various hardware and software that assists in these phases in a collection process. Below are some types of forensic kits that are used in the computer forensic industry

When building a computer forensics lab, especially when there is a budget to be adhered to, there are many aspects of design that must be considered. These include but are not limited to, hardware, software, number and type of machines, network type, physical security, network security (Denmark & Mount, 2010). Assessing what type of information processing will take place in the lab, will also help determine what type of equipment should be installed.

Four sources of data that stand out for forensic investigators in most criminal investigations are files, operating systems, routers and network traffic, and social network activity. Each data source presents a variety of opportunities and challenges for investigators, meaning that the more reliable data collection and analysis activity typically involves examination of a variety of sources. Digital forensics must cover the four basic phases of activity, which include: data collection, which describes the identification and acquisition of relevant data; data examination, which includes the processing of data through the use

The IoT will create unique circumstances in the already established digital forensic process. Trained, qualified professions execute digital forensic investigations with the assistance of tools and techniques to acquire and analyze data. These tools are carefully tested and reviewed by peers and experts before use in the field, to ensure the evidence collected with these tools will be accepted in a court of law. "Among the existing methodologies are the 4-stage Computer Forensic Investigative Process and the 13-stage Extended Model of Cybercrime Investigation" (Oriwoh 609). These methods outline the basic procedure for preparing, examining, presenting, and storing the evidence. IoT investigations will differ in the breadth, and technical

A computer forensics expert can recover information and computer evidence even if it has been hidden, encrypted, or deleted. In computer forensics, time is of the essence and an investigation must be performed in a timely manner to prevent information from disappearing forever. An important aspect of a computer forensic investigation is that the computer forensics expert must be capable of performing the analysis in a manner that will preserve, identify, extract, document and interpret computer data. The computer forensics analysis must be performed in a manner that conforms with legal requirements so that the results of the forensics investigation will be admissible in court. Simply powering up a computer can result in many files being changed. This may affect the admissibility and reliability of digital evidence. The analysis of electronic evidence includes not only the analysis of documents currently in a computer and those that were previously deleted, but also past versions and alterations of electronically stored documents.

Throughout the length of this paper, I am going to be discussing the topic of computer forensics. Computer forensics involves carefully collecting and examining electronic evidence that not only evaluates the damage to a computer as a result of an electronic assault, but also to recuperate lost information from a system to prosecute a criminal in a court of law. Since security is such an important factor in technology, it is crucial for any type of computer professionals to understand the aspects of computer forensics.

This will keep from corrupting or accidently deleting files from the original drive. When EnCase is used and investigators are looking at the files, they are locked in to read only to prevent tampering of the data. Another program is OSForensics which can be used to recover and search for deleted files. According to PassMark Software website (n.d.), OSForensics helps identify suspicious files and activity with hash matching, drive signatures, emails, memory and binary data with the ability to quickly extract information and enable data to be managed effectively, (PassMark Software, n.d.). OSForensics does a free version, which has restricted features which EnCase does not have a free version. OSForensics also can find files fast by searching with file name, size and time which can be done with EnCase. However, Encase has more robust search features to identify data that would be irretrievable with other forensics applications. Both programs allow for creating an image of a storage device to prevent from corrupting the original hard drive. OSForensics also shows a timeline to give a visual representation of system activity over a period of time.

As technology is being advanced, computers have become very influential. Unfortunately, as computers get more complex, so are the crimes that are being done with them. Dispersed Disavowal of Service Attacks, ILOVEYOU and many other different viruses, Domain Name Hijacking, Trojan Horses, and Websites all cause the computers to mess up and shut down are just a few of the many documented attack kinds that are being produced by computers alongside other computers (Wegman). Administrators of data methods need to be able to comprehend computer forensics. Forensics is the procedure of using scientific knowledge for gathering, examining and giving evidence to the courts. Forensics handles chiefly with the retrieval and examination of hidden evidence. Dormant evidence can take a lot of different forms, from fingerprints that have been left behind on a window to DNA evidence that is recovered from blood stains which go on the files and then the hard drive. This paper will discuss my soon to be company that I will supervise that possess the previous qualities

EnCase Forensic one of the leading forensic software suites on the market today. It is designed for forensic practitioners who need to conduct forensically sound data analysis and investigations utilizing a repeatable and defensible process. The suite lets forensic examiners acquire data from a vast array of devices, discover evidence hidden deep within hard disks, and create comprehensive reports without compromising the integrity of the original evidence (EnCase Forensic, n.d.). It comes with a price tag of approximately $2,995.00.

The first investigation model was appeared in 1984 [2], composed of 4 main phases, which are acquisition, identification, evaluation and admission. Acquisition phase gives the importance of authenticity for investigation process as it will be indicated. Relevant data collection is modeled with identification phase. From all collected data, estimation and hypothesis are examined in evaluation phase. The last phase is admission which involves the presentation of founded results and concluding evidence with understandable form before inspection by the court. However, compared with next adopted investigation framework, this methodology was not focused on securing and preserving data from intrusion during the