Hello... New in this area... Need Guidance

Billy,
Glad to see your interest in this field, I promise that if you stick with it, you will find it an interesting and rewarding career. The best basic advise that I can give to you is to start with learning the very basics. By that I mean how files are stored at the disk level by various file systems and understanding what you see at that level. Understand the different file systems and how they work. Look at different types of media using a hex editor. Start out with a floppy disk and play around with adding then deleting files in windows or DOS and see what it looks like using the hex editor noting the changes that are made.
As for books, I have read a few and looked at many more, but one of the better ones that I would recommend is "Computer Forensics : Incident Response Essentials" by Warren Kruse, ISBN # 0201707195. Another that you could read is "A Guide to Computer Forensics and Investigations" by Nelson,Phillips, Enfinger, and Steuart, ISBN # 0619131209. I liked both, but if you read the reviews of "Guide" you will see that it isn't well liked. My view on the books may be a bit skewed because I am reading them after I began learning computer forensics, so I am not relying on them, just using them to refresh my memory or maybe see a different way to do something. Hope this helps get you started.

Matt

Here's another book that I've found helpful

Forensic Computing - A Practitioner's Guide - Tony Sammes and Brian Jenkinson ISBN# 1-85233-299-9

This book is mostly technical hardware information and is a good reference.

Billy,

Welcome to Forensic Focus.

I'm afraid I'm a bit pushed for time right now and not able to list all of the books I'd like to recommend (although I will put up a "Recommended Reading" page at some stage in the near future). However I did just want to support the recommendation for Warren Kruse's book and also for the "Practitioner's Guide" recommended by Andy. In particular I've always thought that the latter is an outstanding and highly underrated work and deserves far more than the 3 stars a reviewer gives at Amazon! There are other good books for the beginner (especially those only looking for an introduction to the topic and no more) but I rate this as the best introduction for the budding investigator out there.

Jamie

I will put up a "Recommended Reading" page at some stage in the near future

That will come in very handy. I need some good entry-level forensics/data recovery books to learn from. I'm also looking at companies at which to intern that do forensics & data recovery.

I, too, am new to this area. I've had an interest in it for some time, but didn't know how to get started. I'm so glad this forum exists. I haven't seen any others like it.

I am currently working on my A+, N+, MCSA certs and plan on doing the CEH and Security+ next year. I'm finding that "what I want to be when I grow up" is to work in the data recovery/forensics/security area. Even thought the field has been around a while, it seems more and more people are becoming aware of it.

Thanks for the forum!

Irondog,

A warm welcome to Forensic Focus!

I'll get that "recommended reading" page up shortly 🙂

Jamie

hi all,

I from Singapore. Presently take up CHFI (Computer Hacker Forensics Investigator) course. With the present world situation, I strongly believe that this field will be the future trend and very important around asia region.

Infact, I am keep thinking how can I setup my own firm doing Computer Forensics.

Anyway, alot to learn from all of you. Good day and enjoy life.

😀

A warm welcome to Forensic Focus, thanks for introducing yourself!

Kind regards,

Jamie

Just a short note to say that the recommended reading page is now up and can be found here:

http://www.forensicfocus.com/computer-forensics-books.php

I think the first two books listed will be of the greatest help to someone starting out in this field, hope you find 'em useful.

I'll add further books shortly.

Kind regards,

Jamie