Computer forensics tools used

Wireshark is a free open source forensic tool that enables users to watch and analyze traffic in a network. Since every organization maintains an internal network for day-to-day operations, Wireshark is an excellent choice for network administrators as well as cybersecurity experts to study all the activities on a network to identify deviations from established norms and zero-in on any suspicious behavior.

Being an open source software, Wireshark has been embellished over a period of time by several developers from across the world. As networks grow in scale, it becomes increasingly necessary to have a consolidated means of assessing traffic patterns to enforce regulations and ensure compliance.

Being free to download and offering a simple GUI, Wireshark has become globally reputed in its usage not only amongst professionals but also amongst causal users and hobbyists. NetworkMiner is another open source forensic tool for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS that can be used by network administrators as well as investigators to assess traffic in a network.

It is used to analyze or even capture packets transferred on a network to detect devices and corresponding operating systems, names of hosts, open ports, etc. And the best part — activities using the NetworkMiner does not generate traffic on a network. This forensic tool allows users to fish out credentials, certificates, emails, etc.

Moreover, users can search for a particular piece of information from the extracts using a keyword search option provided. This is an extremely useful software that enables investigators and senior management to observe and analyze incidents such as data breaches, unauthorized access, illegal modifications, and any suspicious activities. As a matter of convenience, NetworkMiner is a portable software and comes installed in a custom-made flash drive.

Thus, it requires no installation, rendering the job of an investigator quick and easy. With over 1, 00, downloads across the world and having been recommended by experts in the field, SIFT has been used by law enforcement agencies and Fortune companies. Given such pedigree, it should come as no surprise that SIFT was developed by an experienced group of forensic specialists and other subject matter experts.

The bundle of cutting-edge forensic tools contained within SIFT allows for an in-depth investigation into every type of cyber-attack and makes the generation of incident reports simple. Reports generated using SIFT Workstation is admissible in the court of law as evidence to get a conviction. It is one of the few software suites that is internationally recognized for its reliability and effectiveness. It could also work on Windows if Ubuntu were to be installed.

In the event of a crime, the perpetrators often try to destroy the evidence in order to escape justice. This is an extremely common occurrence in the case of cybercrimes. In such a scenario, it is deleted information on devices that help investigators nab the criminals and restore the damages. Few forensic tools can recover deleted information as well as ProDiscover Forensic. It lets people know if there have been any changes made to any files or stored data.

This wonder tool has the ability to recover just about any data that was deleted from the hard drives of any computer. In addition to that, it can do so in a format that is both secure and admissible as evidence in the court of law. The remote forensic capability offered by ProDiscover Forensic has been a boon for investigators, which has made it the top choice for hundreds of customers in over 40 countries. Volatility Framework is a unique forensic tool that lets investigators analyze the runtime state of a device using system information found in the volatile memory or RAM.

Whenever we turn a device off, all unsaved data, which is present in the RAM gets deleted. It is only when we save something that it gets transferred from the RAM to permanent memory. In the field of cyber forensics, it often becomes crucial to be able to extract data from the volatile memory in order to find out about recent activities. Developed by the same team that created The Sleuth Kit , a library of command line tools for investigating disk images, Autopsy is an open source solution, available for free in the interests of education and transparency.

The latest version is written in Java, and it is currently only available for Windows. Bulk Extractor. Bulk Extractor scans a file, directory, or disk image and extracts information without parsing the file system or file system structures, allowing it to access different parts of the disk in parallel, making it faster than the average tool. The second advantage of Bulk Extractor is that it can be used to process practically any form of digital media: hard drives, camera cards, smartphones, SSDs, and optical drives.

The most recent versions of Bulk Extractor can perform social network forensics as well as extract addresses, credit card numbers, URLs, and other types of information from digital evidence. Other capabilities include the ability to create histograms based on frequently used email addresses and compile word lists which can be useful for password cracking. All extracted information can be processed either manually or with one of four automated tools, one of which incorporates context-specific stop lists i.

The software is available for free for Windows and Linux systems. Developed in by a former Hong Kong police officer turned Microsoft executive, the toolkit acts as an automated forensic tool during a live analysis. It contains more than features and a graphical user interface that guides an investigator through data collection and examination and helps generate reports after extraction.

Password decryption, internet history recovery, and other forms of data collection are all included in the toolkit. In November , COFEE was leaked onto multiple torrent sites, and while it is possible—though incredibly tricky—for criminals to build around the features in COFEE, it is also possible for the average citizen to now get a look at what was once the industry standard across the world for digital forensics.

Computer Aided Investigative Environment. CAINE offers a full-scale forensic investigation platform designed to incorporate other tools and modules into a user-friendly graphic interface. Its interoperable environment is designed to assist investigators in all four stages of an investigation: preservation, collection, examination, and analysis. It comes with dozens of pre-packaged modules Autopsy, listed above, is among them. Developed on Linux, the tool is entirely open source and available for free.

Digital Forensics Framework. Equipped with a graphical user interface for simple use and automation, DFF guides a user through the critical steps of a digital investigation and can be used by both professionals and amateurs alike. The tool can be used to investigate hard drives and volatile memory and create reports about system and user activity on the device in question. The DFF was developed with the three main goals of modularity allowing for changes to the software by developers , scriptability allowing for automation , and genericity keeping the operating-system agnostic to help as many users as possible.

The software is available for free on GitHub. DumpZilla performs browser analysis, specifically of Firefox, Iceweasel, and Seamonkey clients. It allows for the visualization and customized search and extraction of cookies, downloads, history, bookmarks, cache, add-ons, saved passwords, and session data.

This tool allows you to examine your hard drive and smartphone. CAINE is a Ubuntu-based app that offers a complete forensic environment that provides a graphical interface. This tool can be integrated into existing software tools as a module.

It automatically extracts a timeline from RAM. This converted file proves helpful for tracking down cybercriminals from anywhere in the world.

This computer forensic tool supports both partial and batch conversion. Google Takeout Convertor converts archived email messages from Google Takeout along with all attachments. This software helps investigate officers to extract, process, and interpret the factual evidence. This Digital forensics software provides more than useful tools for investigating any malicious material. This tool helps you to simplify your forensic task quickly and effectively.

Encase is an application that helps you to recover evidence from hard drives. It allows you to conduct an in-depth analysis of files to collect proof like documents, pictures, etc. It is one of the best computer forensic tools that provides a digital forensic and incident response examination facility.

It can create copies of data without making changes to the original evidence. This tool allows you to specify criteria, like file size, pixel size, and data type, to reduce the amount of irrelevant data.

Magnet RAM capture records the memory of a suspected computer. In other words, a software write blocker works on only the operating system in which it is installed. A physical write blocker works at the hardware level and can work with any operating system because, at the physical level, the write blocker is intercepting or, in many cases, blocking electrical signals to the storage device and has no concern about which operating system is in place. The technology used by computers to read and write to storage devices is well understood and fairly straightforward — you can find dozens of manufacturers of write-protect devices.

Whether you complete one case per year or one case per day, you need to wipe the media you work with before you even start your case, to ensure that no cross-contamination between your cases occurs. Forensic data wipers ensure that no data from a previous case is still present on the media. They overwrite the data with either random binary strings or a repeating pattern of bits.

In addition to this capability, you need a report when the device is finished to prove that you wiped the drive beforehand.

All the major computer forensic software and hardware manufacturers carry data wiping equipment. The chances are good that you can also purchase a dedicated data wiping unit wherever you bought your computer forensic software. Human perceptions being what they are, having an unbiased way to record events and objects is essential to computer forensic investigators. The choice of which device or devices you ultimately choose is based on your needs, but you must use some unbiased documentation method.

Using a video camera, you can repeatedly visit a crime scene to look for that single clue you missed. Simply recording your thoughts is often best accomplished using a simple digital recorder that essentially acts as your personal note-taker! You can find digital video cameras and audio recorders in any good retail electronics store, such as Best Buy or Radio Shack, and Internet retailers. The basic models now available are more than enough to document all your case needs, as long as you carry extra batteries and data storage capacity.

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