What are the types of digital forensic investigations?

Digital forensics is a science branch that involves the analysis, recovery and preservation of any information found on digital devices like mobile, computer, laptops, etc. This branch often concerns cybercrimes. Digital forensics professionals react to incidents such as server hacks, leaks of sensitive information. Also, the specialized forensic toolkits of these experts help them investigate incidents, analyze traffic and search for hidden data and other legal evidence. Also, they collect, recover and even store the data relevant for the forensic investigation and prepare it and present it in the court. There are various types of Digital fraud investigations and we have listed a few major ones just below.

 ·         Network forensic investigation

 This type of fraud investigation is related to monitoring as well as analysis of computer network traffic to collect vital information and evidence.

 ·         Disk forensic investigation

 It deals in extracting data from storage media simply searching active, deleted and modified files.

 ·         Database forensic investigation

 A branch of digital forensics, is related to the study and examination of databases as well as their related metadata.

 ·         Wireless forensic investigation

 A division of network forensic, it's prime aim is to provide the tools required to collect and analyze the data from wireless network traffic.

 ·         Email forensic investigation

 

This type of  digital fraud investigation deals with the recovery and analysis of emails including calendars, contacts and deleted emails.

·         Malware forensic investigation 

It deals with the identification of malicious code and to study their viruses, worms and payload.

 ·         Mobile forensic investigation

 This investigation deals with the examination as well as analysis of mobile phones. Also, it helps to retrieve phone and sim contacts, incoming and outgoing SMS and MMS, videos, audios and many others.

 ·         Memory forensic investigation

This investigation deals with collecting data from system memory such as Ram, cache, system registers, etc., In raw form and later carving the data from raw dump. 

What does a digital forensic expert do?

Digital forensic experts play a key role in the process of investigation of cybercrimes. They also deal with retrieval of data that was deleted, hidden and encrypted. The jobs also include making sure the integrity of the information that is to be used in court. At various stages of the forensic investigation, the expert takes part in the interrogating suspects, witnesses and victims. They help prepare evidence to be presented in the court.

Private companies and organizations corporate with digital forensic experts as well. Their expertise in this field is needed in personal and network security, the large scale financial institutions, the defense sector, IT companies and so on. Digital forensic specialists can be involved in investigating both civil and criminal cases.

 In civil cases, digital evidence is used to settle disputes between private persons and companies. On the other hand, criminal cases imply investigations of breaking the law and the expert helps investigate any criminal case if any digital data is found and represented as evidence.