Digital Forensics: Tasks, Processes, and Challenges

This article discusses the primary tasks, high-level investigation processes, and challenges of a computer forensics specialist. It also provides an overview of how computing devices are used in crimes and their effects on a company's data and information. Additionally, it covers computer forensics investigations and the investigation of ongoing sexual harassment complaints.

Running head: DIGITAL FORENSICS
Digital Forensics
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Basic primary tasks, high-level investigation processes, and challenges of a
computer forensics specialist.
A computer forensic expert is a specialized personal who is associated with the usage of the
forensic tools along with investigation method in order to look for specific electronic data
which includes the history of internet usage, images and many more. They are also associated
with the usage of their technical skills for the purpose of hunting the files or information that
are kept hidden deleted or has been deleted (Dang-Nguyen et al., 2015). They are responsible
for helping the investigators or the detectives to analyse the data so as to evaluate the
relevancy of the data with the case that is under investigation.
The high level investigation process can be categorized into four different sections:
 The first stage involves the collection of the information’s along with making of
observations. In this stage the forensic data are collected and examined which
includes the verification of integrity and authenticity of the evidences.
 The second stage involves the formation of a hypothesis so as to explain the
observations. During the process of gathering the information the experts are also
associated with providing the possible explanations of the information gathered.
 The third stage includes the providing of explanations of the hypothesis. This
explanations acts as a crucial section of the investigation process as the success of the
analysis is dependent on how thoroughly the initial hypothesis is tested (Farid, 2018).
 The fourth stage includes the drawing of the conclusions along with communicating
of the findings of the investigation.

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Overview of how computing devices are used in crimes and affects on a
company's data and information
Making use of the computing devices for crime is a new problem and this type of
problem is generally conducted by making use of a computing device and a network. This
devices ranges from computers to mobiles. The different type of crimes conducted includes
hacking, stealing, misuse of the data, child grooming and many more. Spam is one of the
crime which is conducted by sending of spam emails so as to conduct commercial benefits
(Watson & Dehghantanha, 2016). Fraud is another crime which is a dishonest way of making
someone face losses which might lead to benefits of the attacker. Malware or virus is another
kind of crime conducted by making use of computing devices.
The companies are associated with suffering a lot of problems due to this type of
crimes as the hackers are associated with steeling of the confidential data along with the
future plans of the organization which initially leads to huge losses of the companies. The
hacker who is associated with the stealing of the information sells it to the rival companies in
order to earn money (Farid, 2018). Hacking of the organizations also leads to customer
dissatisfaction as their important data like credit card information and many more are lost.
This type of crimes are also responsible for the decrease in productivity of the companies.
Computer forensics investigations
Computer forensic investigations is associated with following the standard process
related to digital forensic and this process mainly involves the acquisition of evidence by
making use of a computer platform, subsequent analysis and reporting. Besides this various
kind of techniques are used for the purpose of conducting investigations related to computer
forensics (Rogers, 2016). This investigation includes the cross-drive analysis, live analysis,
and the studying of deleted files.

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Cross-drive analysis is defined as the forensic technique which is associated with correlating
the information that are present on multiple hard drives (McCarry & Donaldson, 2017). This
process is mainly used for the purpose of identifying the social networks or for the purpose of
detecting any kind of anomaly. Live analysis include the examining of the computers within
the operating system by making use of the custom tool so as to extract the evidence.
Investigation of ongoing sexual harassment complaints
The potential ongoing sexual harassment complaints are to be investigate by making
use of the four basic steps of digital forensic investigation. That is first of all the required
evidences are to be gather by talking with the persons who have lodged the complaint. It is
essential to keep the collected data confidential. After the evidences are collected this are to
be documented along with the supporting documents so as to explain the evidences that has
been gathered. Before presenting this evidences to the Board of directors it is very much
essential to analyse the evidence that has been collected in order to make sure that there exists
no fake information (Chawki et al., 2015). Forensic imaging of the electronic devices
submitted by the victim of sexual harassment can be used in order to gather evidences.

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References:
Chawki, M., Darwish, A., Khan, M. A., & Tyagi, S. (2015). Sexual harassment in
cyberworld. In Cybercrime, Digital Forensics and Jurisdiction (pp. 65-78). Springer,
Cham.
Dang-Nguyen, D. T., Pasquini, C., Conotter, V., & Boato, G. (2015, March). RAISE: a raw
images dataset for digital image forensics. In Proceedings of the 6th ACM Multimedia
Systems Conference (pp. 219-224). ACM.
Farid, H. (2018). Digital forensics in a post-truth age. Forensic science international, 289,
268-269.
McCarry, M., & Donaldson, A. (2017, September). Gender based violence on UK campus':
intervention, prevention and policy responses. In IInd European Conference on
Domestic Violence.
Rogers, M. K. (2016). Psychological profiling as an investigative tool for digital forensics.
In Digital Forensics (pp. 45-58).
Watson, S., & Dehghantanha, A. (2016). Digital forensics: the missing piece of the internet of
things promise. Computer Fraud & Security, 2016(6), 5-8.