These modern devices enable advancement and majority of people enhance their productivity through these. However, these advantages are also what criminals are looking for advancing their destructive acts. Cyber crime has increased or rather skyrocketed to such an extent that forensic analysts now deal with millions of cases annually. A few decades back they just had a few hundred cases to examine.
The increasing numbers of cases are vast and varied in nature. Forensic analysis involves identification, extraction, preservation and interpretation of information from computers or mobile phones for legal purposes. These findings are presented in the court room and they help solve cases where no fingerprints, eye witness, or DNA tests were possible or prevalent.
The Varied Cases Necessitating Forensic Investigation
Cases that necessitate forensic investigation are cyber crime cases. These illegal acts are committed using the internet and networking operations. As mentioned cases are varied in nature and can relate to terrorism, promoting pornography, white collared crime or even violent crimes like kidnapping and murder.
Business establishments require forensic investigations for apprehending employees who indulge in; Industrial Espionage - This is committed by a person in the management or other senior position, who steals highly confidential and sensitive information and passes on the trade secrets
Information Theft - Employees perform inappropriate or unauthorised duplication of company data for sale
Cyber crime Sabotaging company information driven by revenge motive, personal gain or to gain a winning edge in competition
Other cyber crime activities - comprise of forgery, corruption, e-stalking, etc, during working hours
Forensic investigators solve these cases by recovering data from physically or logically damaged media like, computers or mobile phones. Computer forensic investigation is computer forensic, similarly mobile phone forensic investigation is mobile forensic.
Computer Forensics
Computer forensics involves the usage of specialised tools and techniques for recovering and preserving data from computers. The natures of the case may necessitate accessing and examining data (that might have been presumed lost) and performing a technical analysis for aiding law enforcing agencies. The expertise involved in computer forensic analysis is of a more specialised nature compared to normal data recovery and data preservation. The investigation should adhere to all the stipulated rules to preserve the integrity of evidential data.
All investigation has to be conducted adhering to the rules of Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and National Hi Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU) Correct procedures have to be used to collect the data. This data should be well preserved for evidence. After identifying the required information on the computer, the original media should not be worked upon. It has to be forensically imaged for performance of recovery work. Every procedure conducted during the examination must be repeatable.
Mobile Phone Forensics
Different versions of mobile phones require different techniques for data recovery. If the device is supported by forensic software an automatic analysis is performed. This is followed by a manual verification. When the device is not supported by forensic software a manual verification is performed. If a memory card is present in the handset, computer forensic techniques are used for data recovery.
Data recovered from mobile phones is used to show communication between the suspects, their co conspirators and the victims. However recovering information from mobile phones is not as easy as retrieving data from computers. The software used on cell phones differs from manufacturer to manufacturer and even among two sets of the same make. Data found on the mobiles is usually encrypted or kept hidden. It is also possible to delete messages if the phone is connected to the cellular network.
Usage of digital devices for committing crime has increased greatly. Evolving crime is also curtailed by the rapidly evolving techniques for garnering evidence and apprehending criminals.
James Walsh is a freelance writer and copy editor. For more information on computer crime and Computer Forensics see http://www.fieldsassociates.co.uk
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