Forensic science, also known as criminalistics, refers to the scientific principles and methods to support legal decision-making in criminal and civil matters. Forensic scientists collect, preserve, and analyze evidence during the course of an investigation. Some of the famous branches of forensics are:
Digital Forensics
It is the application of scientific and investigative methods to collect, analyze, preserve, and present electronic evidence in a court of law. It aims to maintain the integrity of digital evidence, identify perpetrators, and support legal proceedings by following a systematic and rigorous approach to data acquisition, analysis, and reporting. Some of the famous tools are autopsy, Wireshark, Volatility, The sleuth Kit, Digital Forensics Framework etc.
Objectives of Digital forensics are:
Sub- Branches of Digital forensics are:
Before using the tool Autopsy let’s see some amazing features of it.
Practical:
Here, we start our journey with the autopsy tool to recover deleted files from your pen drive. Follow along with me to grasp the process and see the tool’s potential. I encourage you to explore its various features, from report generation to timeline analysis and disk imaging, ensuring that you will gain a better understanding for future. So, let’s start together!
Step 1: - Start Autopsy and select “New Case”.
Step 2: - Enter the “Case Name” and your directory. {Autopsy provides multi-user functionality, so select that if required.}
Step 3: - Enter Case Number and Examiner’s details, then click on Finish.
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Step 4: - Specify the host name or else keep this setting as default.
Step 5: - Choose the required data source type, in this case Local Disk for recovering the deleted files from pen drive.
Step 6: - Select the correct drive and time zone and click on Next.
Step 7: - Select the modules you want to scan and click on Next. By default, it will select all the supported modules.
Step 8: - Now the Data source is already added, and file analysis has been started.
Step 9: - Once it's done, you will be able to see all the files, both present and deleted, and here is the preview you will get. It would be great if you try this yourself and explore all the options. You can even save the files on our laptop or computer using extract functionality.
Hope you’ve gained a basic understanding of digital forensics and Autopsy! See you next Thursday — until then, enjoy exploring this tool.