Thursday, February 23, 2012

Some Basic Info Regarding Digital Forensics

By Clare Jones


Digital forensic investigators are a part of specialized branches of forensic science which primarily focus on the investigation of info found on digital devices such as computer hard drives and compact discs. The women and men who devote their time to these branches spend most of it dealing with computer crime cases. The need for these types of investigative units originated back in the seventies, where personal computers first became popular. But, with computer and internet crimes now becoming more prevalent, the growing need for digital forensics is more critical than ever.

The investigative force can be separated into four different categories: information gathering, analysis, intrusion investigation, and, finally, civil litigation. Information gathering and analysis both include the discovery and identification of data based evidence that can be utilized to make a case in courtroom.

Intrusion investigation deals primarily with the felony of network intrusion and civil litigation focuses more on digital discovery disputes.

Before the early eighties, any crime that involved a computer or the internet was handled in accordance to laws that already existed. As personal computers became more prevalent in society, new laws had to be passed in order to deal with the crimes they made possible. Crimes that included cyber bullying, cyber stalking, copyright infringements, and unauthorized data modification.

Many law enforcement agencies began forming specialized groups and task forces that were meant to handle the rising influx of digital crimes in the mid 80s. The Computer Analysis and Response Team of the FBI was first in 1984 with the Fraud Squad of Great Britain following closely behind the next year.

Electronic based evidence, when utilized in courtrooms, are treated with the same legal guidelines that other types of information are. In order to ensure that these evidence formats are trustworthy, since these types of data can be easily manipulated, there are a lot of laws in place that help determine data authenticity on things like hard drives, USB sticks, computers, and even emails.

The process of digital forensics consists of acquiring electronic data, creating a legal duplicate of it, analyzing its role in a certain crime, and finally reporting the resulting facts and information in a way that less data-savvy individuals, such as lawyers and jury members, can understand. Throughout this process, criminal investigators must be sure to handle and duplicate the information so that it can not be modified at a later date.




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