Computer Forensics Tools

A Backup Article Contributed by Melissa Larose

Computer Forensics Tools

Computer forensics is becoming a field in high demand. Training programs are in need of being created, recruiting is being examined and reformatted, and all this in response to the surge in computer crime. The supply is dramatically lower than the demand. What tools will a computer forensics specialist be trained on to perform their jobs?

Computer Forensics Tools

A trained computer forensics professional will have begun their careers with experience on a wide range of computer hardware as well as software. This includes basic design understanding as well as implementation experience. Understanding naming conventions, identifying areas on a system that although are empty now may have held data in the past, knowing how to print out an analysis of the computer system, knowing how to analyze the analysis of computer information, are all necessary skills for a computer forensics expert to have.

It seems that the more experience in trouble shooting a computer and its myriad of systems problems and crashes, the more competent a computer forensics specialist might become. Knowing the inner workings of a computer and where the trail of processes hides is important to tracking down evidence for a computer crime.

Computer Forensics Tools in Court

There are requirements in place for the actual tools that are used in a court of law. Any software tool used to gather evidence must make an exact copy of the digital evidence. These software programs cannot alter the evidence in any way and cannot make any alterations while the evidence is being examined. It simply must make a copy for analysis, just like a copy machine would make a paper copy, no changes.

Any recorded information such as the time the file was made and its access times as well as the content cannot change. Exact copies of whole hard drives must be treated in the same manner. All of these copies are evidence and anytime anything is altered within that evidence it becomes invalid.

In response to this need for programs that copy and don't change internal records, there are companies in the market place that are creating whole workstations, some that can actually be carried in a briefcase to the site, to gather evidence that will be admissible in a court of law. These systems are usually fully loaded with the software needed to complete the job.

Computer Forensics Toolkits

Often referred to as forensics toolkits, these tools are taken to the site of the computer crime and used to gather the evidence needed in court. They have powerful file capability and search functions that help the computer forensics team locate the evidence they need in a timely manner.

These toolkits are designed with software that can read hundreds of file types. We all know from personal experience that our own computers do not recognize every file type we attempt to open. In computer forensics there is no time to figure out how to open a file type.

In addition, these toolkits are fully loaded with full text indexing, advanced search capability, software to locate binary patterns, they will automatically recover any deleted files or partitions and can create custom file filters.