Cyber Forensics

What is Cyber Forensics?

Cyber Forensics is a branch of digital forensics that deals with gathering, conserving,
analysing, and presenting digital evidence in court. Computer forensics is most
commonly employed to detect evidence of criminal behaviour, such as hacking, fraud,
or embezzlement, as well as evidence that can be utilised in civil action. The goal of
computer forensics is to retrieve and preserve electronic evidence from a variety of
digital devices, including as computers, servers, mobile devices, and storage media.
Computer forensics requires the use of specialised tools and software, the ability to
extract and analyse data from a wide range of digital devices and storage media, and
the ability to present evidence clearly.

Cyber forensics encompasses various aspects, including the identification, acquisition,

preservation, analysis, and presentation of digital evidence in a legally admissible
manner, It involves investigating computer systems, networks, digital devices, and
digital environments to uncover evidence of cybercrimes, such as hacking, data
breaches, financial fraud, intellectual property theft, and other illicit activities
conducted in the digital realm.

The main objectives of cyber forensics are to identify and attribute cybercrimes,
reconstruct digital events and timelines, determine the extent of the compromise,
recover lost or deleted data, and provide accurate and reliable evidence for legal
proceedings.

Cyber forensic professionals, often referred to as cyber forensic analysts or

investigators, employ a range of techniques and tools to extract and analyze digital
evidence. These may include forensic imaging, data carving, network traffic analysis,
memory analysis, log analysis, and malware analysis. They follow strict procedures
and guidelines to maintain the integrity and confidentiality of the evidence, ensuring
it can withstand legal scrutiny.

The findings and conclusions derived from cyber forensic investigations can support
various stakeholders, including law enforcement agencies, organizations, legal
entities, and incident response teams. Cyber forensics plays a critical role in
identifying and prosecuting cybercriminals, enhancing cyber security measures,
facilitating incident response, supporting litigation, and contributing to the overall
security and trust in digital environments.

Significance of cyber forensics

1. Investigate Cybercrimes: Cyber forensics plays a crucial role in investigating and
solving cybercrimes such as hacking, data breaches, online fraud, intellectual
property theft, and cyber harassment. It helps identify perpetrators, gather
evidence, and provide crucial information for legal proceedings.
2. Preserve Digital Evidence: Cyber forensics ensures the proper preservation of
digital evidence in a forensically sound manner. By following rigorous
procedures and techniques, it maintains the integrity and admissibility of
evidence, making it usable in legal proceedings.
3. Uncover Digital Trails: Cyber forensics helps uncover digital trails left behind by
cybercriminals. It can trace their activities, including unauthorized access, data
manipulation, network intrusions, and malware infections. This helps in
understanding the methods and motives Of cybercriminals.
4. Support Incident Response: During cyber incidents, cyber forensics helps
identify the extent of the breach, the entry point, and the compromised data. It
aids in incident response by providing valuable insights to contain the incident,
recover systems, and prevent future attacks.
5. Enhance Cybersecurity Measures: By analyzing digital evidence and identifying
vulnerabilities, cyber forensics helps organizations improve their cybersecurity
measures. It provides insights into weaknesses in systems, networks, or policies,
allowing organizations to implement necessary security enhancements.
6. Ensure Compliance and Legal Admissibility: Cyber forensics ensures compliance
with legal and regulatory requirements related to digital evidence. It helps
ensure that evidence collection and analysis adhere to legal standards,
increasing the likelihood of admissibility in court.
7. Support Risk Mitigation: By investigating cyber incidents and identifying their
root causes, cyber forensics helps organizations mitigate risks and prevent
future attacks. It enables organizations to learn from incidents, improve their
security posture, and implement preventive measures to safeguard against
similar threats.
Types of Cyber Forensics
Cyber forensics, also known as digital forensics, encompasses various sub-disciplines
that focus on investigating and analyzing digital evidence related to cybercrimes.
Here are some common types of cyber forensics:

1. Network Forensics: Network forensics involves the examination and analysis of

network traffic, logs, and devices to identify and investigate security incidents,
unauthorized access, network breaches, and other network-related
cybercrimes. It helps in reconstructing network activities, determining attack
vectors, and identifying compromised systems.
2. Computer Forensics: Computer forensics deals with the investigation and
analysis of digital evidence from computers and storage media. It involves
recovering and examining data from hard drives, memory, operating systems,
applications, and other computer-related artifacts. Computer forensics helps in
identifying unauthorized access, data breaches, intellectual property theft, and
other computer-based crimes.
3. Mobile Device Forensics: Mobile device forensics focuses on the investigation
and analysis of digital evidence from smart phones, tablets, and other mobile
devices. It includes data extraction, recovery, and analysis of various mobile
device artifacts, such as call logs, text messages, emails, social media data, GPS
information, and installed applications. Mobile device forensics helps in
uncovering evidence related to mobile device misuse, data leakage,
communication breaches, and other mobile-centric crimes.
4. Memory Forensics: Memory forensics involves the analysis of volatile memory
(RAM) to extract valuable information related to running processes, network
connections, encryption keys, malware presence, and other active system
activities. It helps in identifying malicious processes, root kits, advanced
persistent threats (APTs), and other memory-based cyber threats that may not
be visible through traditional disk forensics.
5. Multimedia Forensics: Multimedia forensics focuses on the analysis of digital
images, videos, and audio files to determine their authenticity, integrity, source,
and any potential manipulations. It involves techniques such as image and video
enhancement, metadata analysis, steganography detection, and audio analysis
to identify tampering, forgery, or manipulation of multimedia files.
6. Incident Response Forensics: Incident response forensics involves the collection,
analysis, and preservation of digital evidence during and after a cyber security
incident. It aims to identify the root cause, extent of damage, and the actions
taken by threat actors. Incident response forensics helps in containing and
remediating the incident, as well as providing evidence for legal proceedings, if
required.