The ability to collect digital evidence in the field — away from a forensic laboratory — has long been a need in corporate, private, and law enforcement investigations.
That’s only accelerated over the past decade, as more people’s mobile devices … Read more
January was a somewhat light month in the way of digital forensics research publication, though the introduction of an Asia-Pacific (APAC) installment of the Digital Forensics Research Workshop (DFRWS) conference more than made up for it. This month we feature … Read more
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, are as fraught as they are fascinating. For every hobbyist flying a drone around the neighborhood on a sunny weekend, there is a neighbor concerned with whether a system’s onboard camera is spying on … Read more
Digital forensics research often depends on casework: specific problems with a device, operating system, app, or artifact that a forensic examiner needs to solve.
That isn’t always the case, though. Sometimes the problem has a broader scope, or the examiner … Read more
The end of 2020 could not come fast enough for most of us, and yet, as the year wound down, some things — such as the digital forensics research recapped in this article — were worth slowing down for. This … Read more
Few digital forensics practitioners would dispute that their job is largely sedentary: there’s a lot of sitting, be it in labs, vehicles (including aircraft), meeting rooms, and conference lecture rooms, among others.
That only became more true in 2020, when … Read more
As 2020 drew to a close, demand for digital forensics and investigations had perhaps never been higher. The COVID-19 pandemic continued to accelerate many forms of digital crime, particularly crimes against children and various types of fraud.
At the … Read more
The Open Source Digital Forensics Conference (OSDFCon) kicked off its second decade virtually and, thanks to sponsorships, free of charge. Usually hosted each October in Washington, D.C., OSDFCon this year drew 12,000 people from around the globe: a massive increase … Read more
The fourth quarter of 2020 has seen some significant legal developments when it comes to digital evidence. In this issue (which also happens to be the anniversary of the inaugural Forensic Focus Legal Update), we highlight:
In September, Forensic Focus was invited to sit in on a meeting of the Scientific Working Group on Digital Evidence (SWGDE). The third and final meeting of 2020 was held virtually — just as the previous meeting, in June, had … Read more
One of the most interesting and important things about digital forensics research is the way legal, cultural, and operational landscapes in different countries inform and even drive the research. In other words, digital technology doesn’t exist in a vacuum, even … Read more
Like so many conferences this year, including some of its smaller chapter events, the High Technology Crime Investigators Association (HTCIA) annual event had to pivot its offerings to a virtual environment. During its week-long event from September 28 to October … Read more
Women mathematicians and scientists invented the computer algorithm, software as we know it, and the foundation of telecommunications, including wireless communication. They helped break secret enemy messages during World War II, and ensured men got … Read more
Online learning is nothing new to the digital forensics world. Vendors such as AccessData and Cellebrite have offered it for years, and distance learning programs at institutions like University College Dublin and DeSales University have long made it possible to … Read more
Sharing is at the heart of any community, and no less so in digital forensics and incident response. Sharing helps to avoid reinventing the wheel — or unnecessarily overcomplicating it. That’s especially true as the complexity of digital evidence advances … Read more
Recently, we reported on two papers that described ways to reduce the risk of mistaken interpretations of digital evidence. Evaluating the uncertainty of evidence, the authors wrote, could bring more structure — and trust — to digital forensics.
We continue … Read more