Book Image

Learn Computer Forensics

By : William Oettinger
Book Image

Learn Computer Forensics

By: William Oettinger

Overview of this book

A computer forensics investigator must possess a variety of skills, including the ability to answer legal questions, gather and document evidence, and prepare for an investigation. This book will help you get up and running with using digital forensic tools and techniques to investigate cybercrimes successfully. Starting with an overview of forensics and all the open source and commercial tools needed to get the job done, you'll learn core forensic practices for searching databases and analyzing data over networks, personal devices, and web applications. You'll then learn how to acquire valuable information from different places, such as filesystems, e-mails, browser histories, and search queries, and capture data remotely. As you advance, this book will guide you through implementing forensic techniques on multiple platforms, such as Windows, Linux, and macOS, to demonstrate how to recover valuable information as evidence. Finally, you'll get to grips with presenting your findings efficiently in judicial or administrative proceedings. By the end of this book, you'll 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)
1
Section 1: Acquiring Evidence
6
Section 2: Investigation
12
Section 3: Reporting

Chapter 2: The Forensic Analysis Process

We will now discuss the forensic analysis process. As a forensic investigator, you will need to create a process that will enable you to conduct an efficient investigation. You also need to make sure you are familiar with your tools and the results that they will provide. Without a process, you will waste time examining data that will not have an impact on your investigation and you will not be able to rely on your tools. You want to make sure you are getting valid results from the tools you deploy. To be thorough and efficient, you must use critical thinking to determine the best method of conducting an investigation or exam.

While there are similarities in every investigation, you will find there are differences that will require you to have an exam strategy to be efficient. I am not a fan of keeping an examination checklist because there will be areas that are not applicable, such as different operating systems, physical topography...