Sunday, January 26, 2014

What A Digital Forensic Investigator Does

By Eliza Mendoza


Modern crimes usually leave electronic evidence. Digital forensics researchers and investigators use various technical skills and methods to find and preserve such evidence. These professionals help solve many problems in computer science such as natural language processing, cyber security and data visualization. A digital forensic investigator is trained to analyze any type of data found in various kinds of devices.

Digital forensics is also referred to as electronic evidence discovery, computer forensic analysis, computer examinations, computer analysis and digital discovery. It involves preserving, identifying, interpreting and documenting evidence so that it can be presented in a criminal or civil court. Computer analysis helps recover deleted files and search the unallocated space on hard drives, where valuable evidence that is hard to find usually resides.

By using computer forensic analysis, investigators are able to get clues about how a person used a computer. They image the hidden files that contain this information. Detectives are able to recover information from storage devices like SD cards, flash disks, zip disks, backup tapes and compact disks among others. They can recover files even from computers that have been defragmented or formatted.

Electronic evidence discovery plays a vital role in investigations. A good example is investigating unfaithfulness among married couples. Detectives can use GPS technology to trail a person suspected of cheating on his or her partner. They can also recover erased short text or electronic messages.

You can also hire the services of a computer forensics investigator if you are a victim of harassment through emails or phone calls. This professional can trail the suspect by preserving logs of calls you have received in your phone or emails sent from a particular source. The detective can present these emails and calls as evidence of harassment. A forensics detective can also analyze email headers and trace the original IP address from which the email was sent.

A computer forensics detective can also perform surveillance. You can hire this professional if you want to gather evidence about the criminal activities a person is suspected of engaging in. The detective may utilize tools like spyware programs and keystroke loggers to get real time information about where and when a suspect left evidence of various illegal actions on a computer.

Computer forensics analysis can also be used to support or discredit a hypothesis before a law court. It can also be used to perform internal investigations in an organization. Regardless of the case being investigated, detectives follow a typical process which begins with seizing and acquiring media such as hard drives and memory cards so that they can be forensically imaged. An investigator should have adequate information before taking this step. He or she can interview people who have information related to the case.

When seeking the services of a digital forensic investigator, you should choose a professional who is highly trained and experienced in this field. This professional should also be ready to act as an expert witness in a courtroom. Providing expert testimony can be challenging and if evidence is presented poorly, a case can be disappointing. You should therefore choose a professional who can easily translate the forensic language into situational concepts that anyone in a courtroom can understand.




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