What is Digital Forensics?

What is Digital Forensics?

The process of preserving, gathering, analyzing, and presenting electronic data in a way that is acceptable in an investigation is known as digital forensics. It includes information from storage devices such as computers, mobile phones, smart appliances, automobile navigation systems, and electronic door locks. Digital forensics aims to collect, examine, and store evidence. It is used to:

• Investigate Cyber Attacks: Digital forensics determines the methods and techniques used by an attacker to compromise a system and identify the attack’s origin.
• Analyze Malware: It is used to analyze malware samples, understand how they work, and determine their origin and the intended target.
• Evaluate Data Breaches: It is also used to evaluate the extent of a data breach, determine what data was stolen, and identify the methods the attacker uses to access the data.
• Preserve Evidence: It is used to preserve evidence of a cyber attack or breach in a way that can be presented in court.

Digital forensics is essential for investigating and understanding cyber attacks and data breaches and helping organizations better protect their networks and systems against future threats.

Phases of Digital Forensics

The phases of digital forensics include:

• Preparation and Planning: This phase involves gathering information about the incident, including the type of attack, the systems and devices involved, and the potential impact. The goal is to develop an investigation plan and determine the resources and personnel required.
• Collection: This phase involves preserving and acquiring electronic evidence from the affected systems and devices. The objective is to gather the evidence while maintaining its authenticity and integrity.
• Examination: This phase involves the analysis of the collected evidence to determine the cause of the incident and the extent of the damage. The goal is to identify any malicious activity or anomalies that may have contributed to the incident.
• Analysis: In this phase, the digital forensics expert uses various tools and techniques to analyze the data and identify relevant evidence. This may involve examining system logs, network traffic, and malware samples, as well as conducting file-system analysis and memory analysis.
• Reporting: This phase involves the preparation of a comprehensive report that documents the investigation findings. The report should include a clear and concise description of the incident, collected evidence, and the analysis results.
• Preservation of Evidence: This phase involves securely preserving the collected evidence to be used as evidence in a court of law if necessary.

Types of Digital Forensics

There are several types of digital forensics, including:

• Computer Forensics: This involves examining computer systems and digital devices to recover and preserve electronic evidence. This type of forensics is often used in criminal investigations involving computer crimes, such as cyberbullying, intellectual property theft, and fraud.
• Network Forensics: This type of digital forensics involves the examination of network traffic to recover and preserve evidence of cyber attacks, such as distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, man-in-the-middle attacks, and intrusion attempts.
• Mobile Forensics: This digital forensics involves examining mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, to recover and preserve evidence of criminal activity. This type of forensics is often used in investigations involving theft, fraud, and cyberbullying.
• Database Forensics: This digital forensics involves examining database systems to recover and preserve evidence of criminal activity. This type of forensics is often used in investigations involving data breaches, intellectual property theft, and fraud.
• Cloud Forensics: This digital forensics involves examining cloud-based systems and services to recover and preserve evidence of cyber attacks and data breaches.
• Social Media Forensics: This type of digital forensics involves the examination of social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, to recover and preserve evidence of criminal activity. This type of forensics is often used in investigations involving cyberbullying, fraud, and intellectual property theft.

Digital Forensics Tools

Digital forensic tools were created to inspect a device’s data without causing harm. Digital forensic technologies can also help ICT administrators detect problem areas in advance. Digital forensic tools are divided into three categories: open-source digital forensic tools, hardware digital forensic tools, and categories. Some popular digital instruments are:

• Forensic Disc Controllers: These tools allow investigators to read data from a target disc while protecting it from being manipulated, damaged, or wiped.
• Hard-Drive Duplicators: These allow the investigator to transfer data from a suspicious thumb drive, hard disc, or memory card to a clean drive for analysis.
• Password Recovery Devices: Machine learning techniques are used to breach password-protected storage devices.

Some of the popular digital forensics tools are:

• The SleuthKit
• OSForensic
• FTK Imager
• Hex Editor Neo
• Bulk Extractor

Final Thoughts

Digital forensics is an essential aspect of the Incident Response process for businesses. Forensics experts determine and record aspects of a criminal incident to provide evidence to law enforcement. The laws and regulations governing this process are frequently helpful in establishing innocence or guilt in a court of law.

If you aspire to advance your knowledge and pursue a career in digital forensics, we suggest you look into InfosecTrain’s cybersecurity training courses. These courses can assist you in honing essential skills and becoming work-ready.