Computer Forensics vs. Electronic Discovery
Computer forensics (CF) can be a tedious process, but there are many benefits to the specialized work. The most obvious benefit is that it helps law enforcement gather evidence necessary to identify criminals and track down electronic evidence related to a crime. While the expense of CF solutions for law enforcement may be prohibitively expensive for some organizations, preventing costly errors by implementing CF solutions as part of an organization's investigation methodology will help avoid false prosecution or lawsuits.
The second most obvious benefit is that it gives a new perspective on how to investigate a crime. CF can also be used by internal personnel as they investigate potential legal violations. If a routine investigation discovers evidence of an internal fraud, CF specialists may have the knowledge and expertise to uncover the fraud entirely without involving law enforcement. This is important in cases where a company faces criminal charges that may negatively impact its business or reputation. The amount of time wasted due to errors made during CF investigations can be disastrous for any company, as it could put them in serious legal jeopardy if the investigation fails to find enough evidence to support the claim.
Forensic computer experts are usually hired by law enforcement agencies and businesses to isolate, analyze, trace and recover electronic evidence related to a crime. To effectively gather this information in a manner that helps them identify suspects and find stolen assets, they must have knowledge of the case as well as the technical skills necessary to perform their job. In order to learn how other people perform their jobs, it's important for CF specialists to attend seminars where they can see how other people use the tools they use everyday. This provides information that is priceless in learning new techniques or simply gaining insight into the work process used by others.
CF investigators work with a wide variety of electronic media – hard drives, network equipment, cell phones, and PDAs – to gather evidence that can be used in a court of law. In some cases they may also be asked to look for signs of an intruder attempting to break into an organization's systems. This is known as computer security incident response (CSIR) or computer forensics incident response (CFIR). They may also be asked to find evidence of unauthorized access where a company suspects that one of its employees may have stolen confidential information from the company.
The process used by forensic computer specialists to gather data is called evidence collection. This process involves the use of various tools, including hardware and software, that are designed to allow them to search for specific information and uncover hidden documents and other evidence. When a computer system has been infected with malware that has copied files in an attempt to hide them, the initial evidence collection is similar regardless of whether the criminals attempt to hide the malware or they leave it openly accessible on the computer.
One way in which CF specialists like themselves can learn how other people use a computer is through attending a CF training course. Computer Forensics University offers classes throughout the United States as well as internationally. Topics covered in the classes range from how to set up a digital forensic lab to a forensics expert lecture on the most advanced methods of evidence collection. This information helps them learn about other people's daily work habits and the lessons they have learned from mistakes.
The process used by CF specialists to gather evidence can be divided into six different tasks that are categorized according to their difficulty level. These tasks include:
• Traceback: This is where investigators try to determine the path that data took through a computer system before they collected it. Tracing back through time allows them to look at which files have been changed and when, so they can pinpoint when certain changes were made. Tracing back through a computer system also helps them determine how the data got onto the computer.
• Software Acquisition: This is where the investigator downloads relevant software onto a computer hard drive under their control, so they can look for evidence of a crime using detailed reports of all activity on the computer such as deleted files, time and date accessed and specific actions performed by users. Installing software to capture network traffic or screen-scrapes from websites or emails is another way in which investigators can get a detailed picture of what happened on an electronic device.
• Data Recovery: In this task investigators recover deleted files from an electronic device by examining the file allocation table (FAT) and making copies of fragmented files. They also look for deleted files by analyzing the file system (NTFS) and looking at the MFT or MFT entry for corrupt files.
• File Analysis: This is where investigators use advanced methods to look for and recover specific information from specific files, such as keywords and phrases embedded in documents, or from images that are embedded in pictures of documents.
• Tools: Here they examine the data that they have collected through the other tasks to see if there's anything worth further investigation. They may also examine other computers and devices, such as laptops, USB flash drives, SD cards, optical discs, portable hard drives or servers to recover any data that may be of interest. This task is relatively straightforward.
• Examination and Analysis: This is the final task where they review everything they discovered during the other tasks. Knowing what they have found, they become aware of all the possible sources of information and analyze each one to determine if it is relevant.
The tasks in which CF specialists perform vary depending on the level of expertise and experience that they have acquired. Some people may perform more than these tasks, while others may only perform one or two of these tasks. At Computer Forensics University, we teach you how to master each individual task so you can produce nothing but the best results for any case you work on.
Computer forensics is a valuable skill for anyone who works in the computer industry. If you work with computers, you should have at least a basic understanding of how to gather evidence from electronic devices. It's also a good idea to know enough about other people's methods to help you in your personal computer use.
If you're interested in becoming a computer forensic investigator and gathering evidence that can be used as part of an investigation to find out what happened and why it happened, then enrolling in a computer forensics training course will give you the skills and experience required to get started in this exciting career field.
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Conclusion
Forensics is not a new or concept that is still being researched and implemented. It has been around for decades and has been utilized in a vast array of applications, such as fraud cases, intellectual property protection, crime detection, computer hacking and investigations. The process of Forensics is explained in the article above.
The usage of Forensics dates back to court proceedings during the 19th century. However it was not until 1915 that the FBI was created that used its first forensics findings during espionage cases. It was in 1976 when the Computer Security Institute was formed which focused on computer hacking brought about by the people responsible for hacking at Lockheed.