Book Image

Practical Digital Forensics

By : Richard Boddington
Book Image

Practical Digital Forensics

By: Richard Boddington

Overview of this book

Digital Forensics is a methodology which includes using various tools, techniques, and programming language. This book will get you started with digital forensics and then follow on to preparing investigation plan and preparing toolkit for investigation. In this book you will explore new and promising forensic processes and tools based on ‘disruptive technology’ that offer experienced and budding practitioners the means to regain control of their caseloads. During the course of the book, you will get to know about the technical side of digital forensics and various tools that are needed to perform digital forensics. This book will begin with giving a quick insight into the nature of digital evidence, where it is located and how it can be recovered and forensically examined to assist investigators. This book will take you through a series of chapters that look at the nature and circumstances of digital forensic examinations and explains the processes of evidence recovery and preservation from a range of digital devices, including mobile phones, and other media. This book has a range of case studies and simulations will allow you to apply the knowledge of the theory gained to real-life situations. By the end of this book you will have gained a sound insight into digital forensics and its key components.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Practical Digital Forensics
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgment
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

E-mail analysis and the processing of large e-mail databases


E-mail recovered from a desktop or laptop computer can hold substantial amounts of data, but e-mail stores held on network servers, even modest-sized stores, can hold numerous messages and attachments, requiring special programs to select and manage them properly. The following subsections further describe how these datasets are managed and how the practitioner may undertake a more efficacious approach to e-mail analysis and identification.

Recovering e-mails from desktop and laptop computers

In the following figure, ILookIX has deconstructed e-mail messages from a single account holding more than 28,000 e-mail messages and attachments. The files appear in a structure, reflecting the e-mail directory structure, files, and attachments as shown on the original device. This makes it easy for the practitioner to become oriented with the e-mail layout and gain a quick perspective of the mail system:

E-mail directory structure viewed in...