Book Image

Learning Python for Forensics

By : Chapin Bryce
Book Image

Learning Python for Forensics

By: Chapin Bryce

Overview of this book

This book will illustrate how and why you should learn Python to strengthen your analysis skills and efficiency as you creatively solve real-world problems through instruction-based tutorials. The tutorials use an interactive design, giving you experience of the development process so you gain a better understanding of what it means to be a forensic developer. Each chapter walks you through a forensic artifact and one or more methods to analyze the evidence. It also provides reasons why one method may be advantageous over another. We cover common digital forensics and incident response scenarios, with scripts that can be used to tackle case work in the field. Using built-in and community-sourced libraries, you will improve your problem solving skills with the addition of the Python scripting language. In addition, we provide resources for further exploration of each script so you can understand what further purposes Python can serve. With this knowledge, you can rapidly develop and deploy solutions to identify critical information and fine-tune your skill set as an examiner.
Table of Contents (24 chapters)
Learning Python for Forensics
Credits
About the Authors
Acknowledgments
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Chapter 2. Python Fundamentals

We have explored the basic concepts behind Python and the fundamental elements used to construct scripts. We will now build a series of scripts throughout this book using the data types and built-in functions we've discussed in the first chapter. Before we begin developing scripts, let's walk through more important features of the Python language, building upon our existing knowledge.

In this chapter, we will explore more advanced features that we will utilize when building our Python forensic scripts. This includes more advanced data types and functions, creating our first script, handling errors, using libraries, interacting with the user, and best practices for development. After completing this chapter, we will be ready to dive into real-world examples featuring the utility of Python in forensic case work.

This chapter will cover the following topics:

  • Advanced features including iterators and datetime objects

  • Installing and using modules

  • Error handling with...