Digital Forensics
Digital forensics is the process of collecting, preserving, analyzing, and presenting electronic evidence from computers, networks, and devices. It follows chain-of-custody procedures to produce findings that are reproducible and defensible in legal or organizational proceedings.
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Intro
Digital Forensics
Digital forensics is the disciplined use of methods to find, preserve, examine, analyze, and report information from digital systems. You use it to answer questions about events while protecting the integrity and meaning of the evidence.
The work supports more than criminal cases. Security teams use forensic techniques during incident response. Organizations also use them for internal investigations, regulatory matters, civil disputes, and technology troubleshooting.
The goal is not to collect everything or produce an impressive tool report. The goal is to answer an authorized question with evidence that another qualified person can understand and evaluate.
Evidence, artifacts, and interpretation
A device is a possible evidence source. The evidence is the information relevant to your question.
A laptop may contain files, file-system metadata, event logs, browser records, application databases, and deleted-file remnants. A server may add authentication records and service logs. Network sensors may provide connection records or packet captures. Cloud services may hold audit events that never existed on the endpoint.
An artifact is a data item produced by a system or application that may help reconstruct activity. An artifact rarely tells the whole story by itself. A timestamp might record creation, modification, access, synchronization, or a tool action. You must identify what produced it before you interpret it.
Corroboration strengthens an explanation. A login event, a file timestamp, and a network record may support the same sequence. A conflict between sources may expose clock differences, missing data, or a mistaken assumption.
The forensic process
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Sources
- https://www.nist.gov/publications/guide-integrating-forensic-techniques-incident-response
Supports
- Digital forensics in incident response and technology troubleshooting
- Collection, examination, analysis, and reporting as the broad forensic process
- Files, operating systems, network traffic, and applications as evidence sources
- Correlation across multiple data sources
- Process, timeline, attribution, incident-response, and report claims across learner artifacts
- Quiz answers about process order, timestamp interpretation, attribution, containment, and missing records
- The first study-path rationale in 06-links.yaml
- https://www.swgde.org/documents/published-complete-listing/18-f-002-best-practices-for-digital-evidence-collection/
Supports
- Preparation, legal-authority review, integrity, security, and documentation during collection
- Recognition of powered state and volatile evidence
- Live collection as a process that can alter and create evidence
- Hashing, verification, working copies, archives, and contemporaneous notes
- Collection, live-system, integrity, custody, and limitation claims across learner artifacts
- Quiz answers about hashing and live acquisition
- The collection-guide rationale in 06-links.yaml
- https://www.swgde.org/documents/published-complete-listing/17-f-002-best-practices-for-computer-forensic-acquisitions/
Supports
- Investigation needs, scope, and authority driving acquisition
- Volatility, ancillary data, acquisition impact, repeatability, and tool validation
- Forensic images, verification, working copies, chain of custody, and preservation
- Acquisition and custody claims across learner artifacts
- Quiz answers about scope, working copies, live acquisition, and transfers
- The acquisition-guide rationale in 06-links.yaml
- https://www.swgde.org/documents/published-complete-listing/18-f-001-swgde-best-practices-for-computer-forensic-examination/
Supports
- Authority and examination-request review
- Isolated known environments, write protection, tool testing, and contemporaneous notes
- Systematic examination of relevant artifacts
- Analysis as interpretation and reporting of sound, defensible findings
- Examination-versus-analysis and tool-limit claims across learner artifacts
- Quiz answers about scope, working copies, timestamp semantics, and absence of records
- The examination-guide rationale in 06-links.yaml
- https://www.swgde.org/documents/published-complete-listing/18-q-002-swgde-requirements-for-report-writing-in-digital-and-multimedia-forensics/
Supports
- Minimum examination-report purpose and elements
- Request, authority, process, supporting data, results, conclusions, disposition, and authorization
- Tool output as supporting material rather than the full examination report
- Reporting claims across learner artifacts
- Quiz answer about tool-generated reports
- The report-writing rationale in 06-links.yaml
- https://www.nist.gov/itl/csd/secure-systems-and-applications/computer-forensics-tool-testing-program-cftt
Supports
- Methodology, specifications, procedures, criteria, test sets, and hardware for forensic tool testing
- Tool capability and limitation evaluation
- Tool-validation claims and conflicting-tool quiz answer
- The NIST tool-testing rationale in 06-links.yaml
- https://www.swgde.org/documents/published-complete-listing/18-q-001-minimum-requirements-for-testing-tools-used-in-digital-and-multimedia-forensics/
Supports
- Baseline testing of core forensic tools before casework
- Testing methods, frequency, report sources, and documentation
- Tool-validation checklist and conflicting-tool quiz answer
- The organizational tool-testing rationale in 06-links.yaml
- https://csrc.nist.gov/glossary/term/chain_of_custody
Supports
- Chain of custody as tracking evidence through collection, safeguarding, analysis, and transfers
- Custody definition and transfer-record quiz answer
- https://csrc.nist.gov/pubs/sp/800/201/final
Supports
- Cloud forensic readiness, cloud forensic challenges, and mitigation strategies
- Cloud evidence limits in learner artifacts
- The cloud-forensics rationale in 06-links.yaml