Book Image

Learn Computer Forensics – 2nd edition - Second Edition

By : William Oettinger
Book Image

Learn Computer Forensics – 2nd edition - Second Edition

By: William Oettinger

Overview of this book

Computer Forensics, being a broad topic, involves a variety of skills which will involve seizing electronic evidence, acquiring data from electronic evidence, data analysis, and finally developing a forensic report. This book will help you to build up the skills you need to work in a highly technical environment. This book's ideal goal is to get you up and running with forensics tools and techniques to successfully investigate crime and corporate misconduct. You will discover ways to collect personal information about an individual from online sources. You will also learn how criminal investigations are performed online while preserving data such as e-mails, images, and videos that may be important to a case. You will further explore networking and understand Network Topologies, IP Addressing, and Network Devices. Finally, you will how to write a proper forensic report, the most exciting portion of the forensic exam process. By the end of this book, you will have developed a clear understanding of how to acquire, analyze, and present digital evidence, like a proficient computer forensics investigator.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
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Index

Computer Investigation Process

Being a digital forensic examiner requires you to have a plan to conduct the investigation. For instance, there is the kitchen sink approach – where the person requesting the examination states, I want it all. However, this is not practical when the smallest drive might contain hundreds of thousands of pages or events. So while the kitchen sink approach is a plan, it may not be the most efficient.

In reality, your search method will depend on the crime you are investigating and whether there are limitations to the scope of the search. For example, in some investigations, the judicial authority may restrict an investigator’s access to digital evidence to only email messages, or you may be limited to a specific date and time within the forensic image.

This chapter will first go through timeline analysis, where a user’s activity is analyzed temporally. Then, we will examine the storage containers used by the user. You will...