Digital Forensics Overview

A sequence of events from incident reporting to trial, involving digital evidence examination and legal procedures.

Formal notification of a digital crime/incident, initiating the forensic process.

Legal authorization to seize digital devices, ensuring proper preservation of evidence.

Safely taking possession of digital devices and preserving their data for examination.

Detailed analysis of digital devices to extract relevant information from digital data.

A document with the findings of a digital forensic examination and explanation of the process.

A legal officer who decides if digital evidence is strong enough for a trial.

Digital evidence used to prove a case in court, with proper explanation by the examiner.

UK law creating criminal offenses related to unauthorized computer access and modification.

Accessing computer materials without the owner's permission, a criminal offense under the Computer Misuse Act.

Unauthorized changes to computer materials, a criminal offense under the Computer Misuse Act.

Unauthorized access, access for other crimes, and unauthorized modification are the 3 offences of the Computer Misuse Act.

Providing information on how to hack computers or make unauthorized modifications is illegal.

Encouraging others to break the law that prohibits unauthorized computer access or modification is illegal.

Software designed to damage or disable a computer system.

Violating the Act can result in imprisonment and/or fines.

A hardware device that prevents data from being written to a storage device, ensuring the original data remains untouched during forensic analysis.

Software used to create an exact copy (clone) of a storage device, preserving its data for analysis. It's often used for Windows-based computers.

Specialized software used to examine digital devices for evidence, uncovering hidden files, deleted files, and even fragments.

A professional digital forensics software package producing reports that are widely accepted in courts as reliable evidence.

A free digital forensics software package, offering basic analysis capabilities. Not as powerful as EnCase.

Files that have been removed from a device but often still reside on its storage, recoverable by digital forensics software.

A storage device that has been cleared of data (often accidentally), potentially losing valuable information. Digital forensics can sometimes recover it.

Partial pieces of files that may be scattered across a storage device. Digital forensics can try to reconstruct them.

Information about the flow of data on a network, like the source and destination of data packets, the time of transmission, and the type of data being sent.

A file that contains a record of all network traffic intercepted and saved for analysis, often used in digital investigations.

Data stored by mobile service providers that can be accessed with legal authorization, including call history, location data, and contact information.

Mobile devices with data protection measures that make accessing information more challenging for investigators.

A unique digital fingerprint created from a piece of data, like a text message or file. It's used to verify data integrity and detect changes.

A network designed to anonymize online communications and make it difficult to identify the source of data.

Another type of hash function, similar to MD5, but considered more secure. It also creates a unique digital fingerprint for data.

A service that encrypts network traffic and hides the sender and receiver's locations, making it difficult to trace communications.

A method used to protect information by converting it into a form that is only accessible with a decryption key.

A record of the device's details, like its Make, Model, and Serial Number, used to identify the specific device being examined.

Encrypted data presents a challenge for digital forensic investigations since investigators need the decryption key to access the information.

These details uniquely identify a device, like its manufacturer, specific model, and individual serial number.

A collection of data about a user on a computer, including settings, files, and preferences.

Holds information about applications used on a computer, even after the application is deleted.

Stores the details of contacts saved by the user.

The main screen where users see files and shortcuts, used for quick access.

Holds files that have been deleted by the user, waiting for final deletion or recovery.

Files that are not normally visible, but can be shown by enabling the 'Hidden Items' option.

An account with limited access to a computer, often used for guests.

The specific folder on a computer where user profiles are stored.