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

Exploring evidence 

What is evidence? The dictionary definition is the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid. Now that seems to be a short, simple, common sense answer to a simple question. In reality, the question becomes far more convoluted when you take into account regulations, the law, and rules of evidence in one jurisdiction, and this grows exponentially when considering multiple jurisdictions. Evidence is a determination made by the trier of fact. The trier of fact will determine if the evidence meets the standards for that proceeding and jurisdiction. Despite the trier of fact, if you accept the evidence, it can still be called into question.

I offer the following example: Let's say you are investigating a murder and you find the victim's and suspect's blood in the suspect's vehicle; the victim's blood on the suspect's socks; and a bloodied glove at the scene, and its matching...