Computer Crime Investigations

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Recommended: Importance of forensic evidence

In simple terms, computer or digital forensic evidence analysis is the scientific collection of data that is either retrieved or held by a computer storage device that can be used against a criminal in a court of law. For the information to be used in court it should be collected before it is presentation; therefore, there are a number of recommendations proposed to make sure that information collected meets the intended integrity.

Information collected digitally from computers or media storage applications has protocols that need be followed during the process. The order of collecting digital information mostly determines the life expectancy of information collected (Eoghan, 2004, p. 74). There is a need to change information collection procedures since there are changes in the field of computing. In this regard, all information collected is at times determined by the type of tools and instruments supplied by the suppliers. Investigative agencies should be keen to ensure that they hire services of competent suppliers who are updated with present technology and supplies their instruments at an attractive price (Eoghan, 2004, p. 74).

Suppliers and collecting agencies should understand that present technology has removable storage devices where information can be stored and cannot be retrieved in the hard disks (Eoghan & Gerasimos, 2008, p. 93). There are also malwares that can be stored in the RAM and cannot be traced in the hard drives meaning that instruments and the strategies for collecting information should be fashioned in a way that can out do the tricks of data storage and theft (Eoghan & Gerasimos, 2008, p. 93). From experience, while dealing with computers it is possible to crack the trick that is generated using co...

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...any reasonable doubt that the accused is responsible for the crime accused of. One of the oversights that can occur during collection of digital evidence is that digital storage devices are intact and cannot lose the collected data; to overcome the oversight, it is important to have a backup of all collected information about a crime.

References

Carrier, B. D. (2006). Risks of live digital forensic analysis. Communications of the ACM, 49 (2), 56-61.

Eoghan, C. (2004). Digital evidence and computer crime, 2nd Ed. London, UK: Elsevier.

Eoghan, C., & Gerasimos, S. (2008). The impact of full disk encryption on digital forensics. Operating Systems Review, 42 (3), 93-98.

Henry, P. (2009, Sep 12). Best practices in digital evidence collection. Retrieved from http://computer-forensics.sans.org/blog/2009/09/12/best-practices-in-digital-evidence-collection/

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