Contents

Executive Summery. 2

Introduction. 2

Background. 2

Scope. 3

Digital Forensic Tools. 3

Analysis. 5

Digital Forensic Techniques. 5

Findings. 7

Conclusion. 8

References. 8

Executive Summery

This report is based on the topic of Digital Forensic. In this report we will discuss about the term Digital Forensic in detail and besides this we will also discuss about the various tools and techniques of digital forensic that are necessary to encrypt the data. In case of cloud network, digital forensic is an essential technique to use. This report will contain the various findings, conclusions and analysis regarding the digital forensic technique.

Introduction

In this report we are going to discuss about digital forensic. Digital Forensic is related to the process to unveil and interpreting electronic data, so that it can be used for further legal processes. Digital Forensic is also known as Computer Forensic. The term digital forensic also includes the recovery and investigation of all devices that are related to the storage of digital data. (Techopedia.com, 2014.)

Background

According to analysis it is found that Computer Forensic is not a new technique among various users of digital data. Computer Forensic is same as those methods of forensic subdivisions. Computer Forensic is not considered as the revolution in term of forensic. It is considered as the crime techniques and ideas which are related to the computer forensic.

Scope

The scope of this report is to provide awareness to the various users of cloud networks. This report will cover all essential factors of computer forensic such as encryption tools, techniques that are necessary to prevent data on cloud networks. By this report user will get know about Computer Forensic technique properly and this is necessary before using start using this technique for handling various digital crimes.( Forensic-research.com, 2014.)

Digital Forensic Tools

As we know that computer forensic is a very essential tool to recover and investigate the data which is stored in the digital storage devices. There are many applications available which are related to the computer forensic. These applications are used by the experts of digital forensics to recover the deleted files, and other lost information such as internet history, missing emails and erased images can be found with the help of these forensic tools.( Tabona,2013.) There is list of computer forensic tools that are listed as below:

• Disk Imaging Software
• Software and Hardware Write Tools
• Hashing tools
• File Recovery Programs
• Encryption Decoding Software

Disk Imaging Software

Disk imaging software is used to record the structure and content of a hard drive. This software not only store the information of hard drive, but also store the way in which various files and folders stored. This software also stores the information about the relationship of various files and folders with each other.

Software and Hardware Write Tools

This is important software which is used by the computer forensic experts to manage the hard drive. This software copies and reconstructs the hard drive bit by bit. Software and hardware tools do not use information by changing with each other. In some cases, it is also necessary for the investigators and experts that they have to remove hard drive before copying the hard drive; this is happened due to this software.

Hashing Tools

Hashing tools are used to compare the original hard disks with the copy of hard disks. This tool is the best way to know that copy of hard drive is the actual replica of original hard drive or not. To do this hashing tool analyze the data of hard drive properly and then assign a unique hash number to data. If the original hash number is matched with copied hash number then it will be cleared that this hard drive is the right replica of original hard drive.

File Recovery Programs

As from name it is cleared that this software is used to recover files. Various investigators and experts of computer forensic are used these tools to recover the data. This tool also provides help to restore the deleted data easily and quickly. To recover deleted files, these programs locate that data which is marked for deletion, but still not overwritten by any other data. This type of data can be easily recovered by these programs. Sometimes it happens that these programs results incomplete file and that is difficult to analyze.

Encryption Decoding Software

Password cracking software and encryption decoding softwares are used to access data in a protected way. These softwares are necessary to use by the computer forensic experts and investigators to encrypt the data which is used on cloud. Encryption is considered as the best possible technique of security of data.

Besides above given computer forensic tools there are some other tools which can be used by the computer forensic experts and investigators, that tools are listed as below:

ü  There are some other tools that designed to store the information in the Random Access Memory. Due to RAM, a process finishes when someone shuts off the system, it is does not happened in the hard drive. In such case there is need to use right software to prevent the information for get lost.

ü  There are various analyzing software that go through the whole content of the hard drive to find out specific content from the hard drive. As we know that some hard drives consists of large amount of data that is in the form Gigabyte. In that case it is become difficult to sift that large content. It is the most time consuming and cumbersome tasks to do. That is why it is difficult to find the specific data from the hard drive. But now there are various software available to handle this process of finding data from large amount of data. These softwares are very much beneficial for the computer forensic experts and investigators to find out the specific log of information to find out the cloud attacks.

These computer forensic tools can be used by the computer forensic and experts to get the information from cloud in secure way. The purpose to mention these tools in the report is to provide essential information to various users. These tools are most commonly used by the computer forensic experts and investigators.

Analysis

Digital Forensic Techniques

The various computer forensic techniques that are used to mask or encrypt the data while using on the cloud network. The various computer forensic techniques are listed as below:

ü  Steganography

ü  Encryption

ü  Digital Image

Steganography

Steganography is considered as the art of covered and hidden writing. This computer forensic technique is used to mask and hide the communication messages from third party.( Burgess,2014.) This is considered as the best technique to hide the confidential messages and information over the cloud. This technique is different from the cryptography that is also the art of hidden writing. Steganography is separate from the cryptography because Steganography hide or mask the messages and information, but cryptography make the message unreadable for any third party but does not hide the message. There is a process of transmitting hidden messages which is followed by the Steganography.  In this process Steganography place the hidden messages on transport medium that is known as carrier. Hidden message is totally embedded in the carrier to form as Steganography medium. Besides this Steganography key is also embedded with the hidden message to encrypt that message. This process can be displayed in the following relation:

Steganography_medium = hidden_message + Carrier + Steganography_key.

Steganography is categorized in two types and those two types further has hierarchy of some codes, that is listed as below:

• Technical Steganography
• Linguistic Steganography

Technical Steganography

 This type of Steganography uses various scientific methods to mask the message. These methods include invisible ink and other methods such as size-reduction methods.

Linguistic Steganography

This is another type of Steganography; this technique is used to hide the message on carrier in some unidentified way. Through it is difficult to find the message over network. This type of Steganography is further categorized as semagrams or open codes.

Encryption

Encryption is the other technique which is used by the computer forensics and experts to encrypt the messages. The encrypted technology is increasing day by day for providing protection. Encrypted data which is used over the cloud cannot be used by the forensic investigators without using the decryption key. As we know that encryption is used to maintain the privacy and security of the data and information. The location of encryption data must not be identified easily by the any other third party.  Encryption technique is used to prevent the information from leakage over the cloud networks where large amount of data is transmitting and sharing over the internet.

Encrypted is beneficial for the computer forensics because encrypted data is in unreadable form. As we know that computer forensics and experts need log of information regarding the IP addresses of various users to identify the cloud attacks. This information must be in the encrypted format and that must not be leaked to any other third party.

In digital forensic same encryption techniques and algorithms are used that are used for other network security purposes. Cipher is considered as the best algorithm for encryption of data. According to this algorithm various ciphers are used in the information. This cipher algorithm is further classified in two categories that are substitution cipher and transportation cipher. Besides this today ciphers algorithms are classifieds private and public key.

These public and private key are further classifieds into two categories that stream and block ciphers.  All these types of ciphers are used to maintain the security of data by encrypted this data.  Besides this Autokey cipher, Playfair cipher are also used for encryption purpose. The most commonly used ciphers are private and public key. This is possible because these two algorithms are easy to use and provide high level of security. Private and public keys are used for the encryption and decryption of data. Most of the forensic experts use this security technique to handle the information. Encryption technique is mostly preferred by the various computer experts because this is easy to use and encrypted data is very difficult to identify by the third party experts. Steganography, cryptography and encryption are most commonly used security techniques among various experts.

Digital Images

Digital images can also be used for the cyber crimes. Computer forensics and experts must analysis the differences between the digital images by knowing the source of images that can be camera or computer graphics softwares. This analysis is done to know the high accuracy of digital images. Digital images that are from cameras, scanners have residual pattern noise that effects the quality of images.

These are some essential techniques of computer forensic to maintain the quality, security and privacy of data. These techniques provide help to know that how computer forensic experts and investigators can maintain the security of information and data that is so much essential to fulfill various confidential tasks.

Findings

Here in this report we have discuss a lot about the computer forensic, its techniques and tools. Computer forensic technique is not so much common among various users, that is why we have used some important articles, e-books and journals to collects information about the computer forensics. So that it can provide help to other users in knowing more about the computer forensic and how this technique can be useful for various experts and investigators.

Conclusion

From above research about Digital Forensic, we can say that digital forensic provides various benefits to the computer forensic experts and investigators. Forensics experts need high level of security to manage the log of information that are related to the IP addresses, in that case computer forensic provide us a way to save the information by using various hiding and masking techniques. In this report we have mentioned these techniques and tools that are used by the investigators to properly manage the information. Experts must be very careful while using these digital forensic tools. Security is considered as the first priority for any user, that is why whether a technique is new or old security must be maintained for that.

References

Forensic-research.com, 2014. History of computer forensic Available at

http://www.forensics-research.com/index.php/computer-forensics/computer-forensics-history/ [Accessed on May, 2014]

Tabona,2013. What are various tools of digital forensic? Available at

http://www.gfi.com/blog/top-20-free-digital-forensic-investigation-tools-for-sysadmins/ [Accessed on May, 2014]

Strickland, 2014. What is digital forensic? Available at

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/computer-forensic5.htm [Accessed on May, 2014]

Burgess,2014. About Digital Forensic Technique. Available at

http://burgessforensics.com/digital_forensics.php  [Accessed on May, 2014]

Evidenmagazine,2014. Digital forensic and encryption. Available at

http://www.evidencemagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=656 [Accessed on May, 2014]

Forensickb.com,2014. Basic computer forensic analysis technique. Available at

http://www.forensickb.com/2011/03/basic-computer-forensic-analysis.html [Accessed on May, 2014]

Computerforensic.com,2014. What is data encryption technique? Available at

http://www.computerforensics1.com/data-encryption.html [Accessed on May, 2014]

IEEExplore.org,2014. Forensic techniques. Available at

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=4517944&url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fxpls%2Fabs_all.jsp%3Farnumber%3D4517944 [Accessed on May, 2014]

Defiance.edu,2014. What is digital forensic? Available at

http://www.defiance.edu/academics/sm/digital-forensic-science/ [Accessed on May, 2014]

Rouse,2014. Definition of computer forensic. Available at

http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/computer-forensics [Accessed on May, 2014]

Strickland,2014. How computer forensic works? Available at

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/computer-forensic.htm [Accessed on May, 2014]

Collegesand degrees.com,2014. Computer forensic techniques. Available at

http://www.collegesanddegrees.com/programs/computer-forensics/techniques  [Accessed on May, 2014]