Cyber forensics, also known as digital forensics, refers to the practice of collecting, analyzing, and preserving digital evidence found on digital devices and networks. It essentially involves applying investigative techniques to cyber crimes and attacks to gather enough evidence to trace back the attack to its origin.
The history of cyber forensics dates back to the 1980s when law enforcement agencies first started encountering digital evidence. However, cyber forensics emerged as a formal discipline in the early 1990s as the widespread use of computers led to an increase in cyber crimes. Some of the early applications of cyber forensics included investigations into computer viruses, unauthorized access, and fraud cases.
The cyber forensics process typically involves identifying sources of potential digital evidence, acquiring and preserving the evidence while maintaining its integrity, analyzing the data for relevance, reconstructing events, and presenting the findings. Some common tools used in cyber forensics investigations include disk imaging tools, network sniffers, password crackers, and file carvers.
In today’s digital age, cyber forensics has become critically important for investigating a wide range of cybercrimes and security incidents. It provides the technical means to gather digital evidence that can identify intruders, unravel complex attacks, and bring cyber criminals to justice. Cyber forensics also helps organizations strengthen their security defenses and prevent future attacks.
Objectives of Cyber Forensics
Some key objectives of cyber forensics include:
Determining the source of cyber attacks – Cyber forensic investigators analyze digital evidence to identify the origin of malicious attacks, including the path, tools, and techniques used by the attackers (https://mrcet.com/pdf/Lab%20Manuals/IT/R15A0533%20CF.pdf).
Gathering legal evidence – A core goal is to legally obtain, preserve, and present digital evidence that can be used in a court of law to prosecute cybercriminals or resolve civil lawsuits (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cyber-forensics-dr-shubhamangala-sunila).
Recovering lost or corrupted data – Experts use forensic tools and techniques to restore deleted, damaged, or encrypted files and directories that may contain valuable evidence or information.
Identifying hackers – Through detailed digital forensic analysis, investigators can gather evidence to identify criminal hackers or insiders responsible for attacks.
Role of Cyber Forensics Experts
The role of a cyber forensics expert is broad and involves diverse responsibilities across technology and law. The primary tasks include:
Extracting and analyzing data from digital devices such as computers, mobile phones, network equipment, and other storage media to uncover evidence. This involves using specialized forensic tools and techniques to recover deleted, encrypted, or damaged files. According to EC-Council, cyber forensics experts must “identify, preserve, recover and analyze computer data.”
Providing detailed forensic reports and findings for legal proceedings and investigations. The analysis and evidence presented by experts are critical for building strong cases. As one source notes, cyber forensics reports must “stand up to scrutiny in a court of law.”
Testifying as expert witnesses on digital forensic processes, findings, and evidence in court cases and hearings. Experts must be able to explain technical information in a clear manner and withstand cross-examination. Their testimony often directly impacts verdicts and case outcomes.
Continuously expanding their knowledge as technology evolves. Cyber forensics experts must stay up-to-date on the latest hacking techniques, devices, and forensic methodologies through ongoing training and certification.
Cyber Forensics Process
The cyber forensics process involves several key steps for gathering, analyzing, and presenting digital evidence. According to Splunk, the main phases are:
- Identification – Identifying potential sources of evidence and establishing proper authorization for the investigation.
- Preservation – Preserving the integrity of evidence by securing devices, creating disk images, using write-blocking tools, and generating hash values.
- Analysis – Extracting and interpreting digital data, including reviewing file metadata, recovering deleted files, decrypting data, and data mining.
- Documentation – Documenting the procedures used during the investigation and examining the evidence.
- Presentation – Summarizing and presenting investigation findings in reports or as expert testimony.
Proper identification and preservation of digital evidence is crucial in order to establish a solid foundation for analysis. Forensic experts use a variety of tools and techniques to extract data from digital devices while avoiding alteration of the original evidence. Thorough documentation also allows findings to be effectively communicated in a legal setting.
Tools Used
Cyber forensics experts use various tools and techniques to investigate crimes and gather evidence. Some key tools used in cyber forensics include:
Forensic toolkits like EnCase [1] and FTK provide comprehensive capabilities to acquire, analyze and report on digital evidence. They allow forensics experts to preview files, recover deleted data, decrypt files, and create detailed reports.
Encryption cracking tools such as AccessData’s PRTK or ElcomSoft Forensic Disk Decryptor can break encryption on devices and access encrypted files and drives. This helps uncover hidden or obfuscated data.
Data acquisition tools like FTK Imager allow forensics experts to create bit-for-bit forensic images of digital media. This preserves the integrity of the original data for analysis.
File viewers like EnCase allow in-depth analysis of file formats including documents, images, internet history and emails. Experts can dig into metadata, search across files, and visualize timelines.
Network tools monitor network traffic, perform deep packet inspection, reconstruct web activity, and uncover attacks. Popular tools include Wireshark, NetworkMiner, and SolarWinds.
[1] https://medium.com/@hasithaupekshitha97/what-is-cyber-forensics-b84001c31a8
Digital Forensic Evidence
Digital forensic evidence includes various artifacts from digital devices and networks, including files, email, logs, metadata, network traffic, hidden and deleted data (Retrieving Digital Evidence: Methods, Techniques and Issues https://www.forensicfocus.com/articles/retrieving-digital-evidence-methods-techniques-and-issues/).
Files such as documents, images, audio and video contain significant evidence. Emails may reveal communication between suspects. Log files record user actions and can help reconstruct events (Interpol review of digital evidence for 2019–2022 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589871X22000985). Metadata includes timestamps, geo-location data and other details about files. Analyzing network traffic provides insight into connections and data transfers. Recovering hidden and deleted data can uncover attempts to conceal evidence.
By thoroughly examining these digital artifacts, investigators can find critical evidence like motives, relationships between suspects, exact times of actions, and more.
Challenges
Cyber forensics investigations face several key challenges that can impede the investigation process (ZUHRI, n.d.). One major challenge is encryption, which can make it difficult or impossible to access potential evidence (Challenges faced by Cyber Forensic Investigator, 2017). Suspects often use encryption to conceal data, and specialized decryption techniques are often required. Anti-forensics techniques like data hiding, wiping, spoofing, and steganography also pose challenges.
Jurisdictional issues can impede investigations when data is stored across multiple devices or servers in different legal jurisdictions. The global and borderless nature of cybercrime makes unified protocols difficult (Q. Vinayak, 2018). Forensics experts must navigate complex legal frameworks.
Lastly, cyber forensics requires extensive time and resources. Specialized tools, training, and technical expertise are needed, making costs prohibitively high for smaller organizations. The volume of data to analyze also requires ample time and personnel (Challenges faced by Cyber Forensic Investigator, 2017). Proper funding and resources are imperative for successful cyber forensics.
Malware Forensics
Malware forensics involves analyzing malicious software code to understand its functionality, infection methods, damage caused, and attribution. Cyber forensics experts use a variety of tools and techniques to reverse engineer malware binaries, examine configuration files, analyze memory dumps, observe network traffic, and more. Some key aspects of malware forensics include:
Analyzing malware code – Experts use disassemblers like IDA Pro to take apart malware binaries and examine the assembly code. This helps reveal the logic, commands, and internal workings of the malware. Code analysis provides insight into capabilities like keylogging, network propagation, data exfiltration, etc.
Studying infection methods – Analysts examine initial infection vectors like phishing emails or drive-by downloads. They recreate attack chains to understand malware behavior at each stage of infection. This includes analyzing droppers, loaders, injectors, and other components.
Assessing damage caused – Forensics reveals the impact of malware by documenting affected files, registry changes, network activity, processes manipulated, and other artifacts. This quantifies the scope of compromise and helps prioritize remediation steps.
Attribution – Though difficult, analysts try attributing malware to specific threat actors based on code similarities, infrastructure, targeting, etc. Attribution provides context on the motives and capabilities of the attackers.
Useful malware analysis tools include IDA Pro, OllyDbg, Process Monitor, Wireshark, YARA rules, and sandbox environments like Cuckoo. Malware techniques constantly evolve, so analysts must stay up-to-date on new tactics, frameworks like Metasploit, and evasion methods.
Sources:
https://resources.infosecinstitute.com/topics/digital-forensics/computer-forensics-overview-malware-forensics/
Mobile Forensics
Mobile forensics is a branch of digital forensics that focuses on extracting data and evidence from mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, and wearables. Mobile devices present unique challenges for forensic investigators due to their security features, proprietary operating systems, encrypted data, and tendency to frequently overwrite deleted data.
To extract data from locked mobile devices, investigators often exploit security vulnerabilities or use advanced methods like chip-off forensics to directly access flash memory chips. They may also employ forensic tools to bypass locks, decrypt data, and recover deleted files. However, mobile OS security improvements make data extraction increasingly difficult.
Reconstructing the sequence of events on a mobile device and recovering deleted data require mobile forensic tools. Commercial products like Cellebrite and Oxygen Forensics offer advanced capabilities to parse information from apps, geolocation history, and cloud backups stored on mobiles. Open source tools like Autopsy and Mobilyze provide lower-cost options.
Despite challenges, mobile forensics remains crucial for gathering evidence from the many cybercrimes perpetrated through smartphones. Methods and tools are evolving rapidly to help investigators keep pace with mobile security and encryption.
Sources:
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/cybersecurity-foundations-computer-forensics/mobile-forensics
https://eforensicsmag.com/product/forensicanalysis/
Career in Cyber Forensics
Cyber forensics is an increasingly important field for investigating cybercrimes and gathering digital evidence. As technology advances, demand for qualified cyber forensics experts continues to grow. A career in cyber forensics requires specialized skills and training.
Cyber forensics experts typically have backgrounds in computer science, criminal justice, or information technology. Useful skills include programming, data analysis, attention to detail, critical thinking, and knowledge of legal processes. Formal training is available through certificate programs, associate’s degrees, bachelor’s degrees, and master’s degrees in fields like cyber forensics, computer forensics, digital forensics, and information security (Coursera, 2023).
Major employers of cyber forensics professionals include government agencies like law enforcement and intelligence services as well as private cybersecurity firms. According to Payscale, average salaries range from $60,000 for entry-level positions to over $120,000 for senior managers. Senior cyber forensics analysts can earn salaries approaching $200,000 (Payscale, 2023).
Employment for cyber forensics specialists is projected to grow 31% from 2019-2029, much faster than average for all occupations. Demand is driven by the proliferation of digital devices and rising cybercrime. As technology evolves, professionals with up-to-date expertise in recovering and analyzing evidence from new devices and systems will continue to be in high demand (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021).