The growing field of Computer forensics came into being as a response to the increasing amount of criminal activity that makes use of or targets computers and the internet. The field of computer forensics is still considered to be a relatively new field developing in the early to mid 1980’s with the development of IBM making computers more than just for fun. Many businesses around the world considered these new Personal computers and mainframes another reliable and effective business tool for their companies. Federal Law Enforcement began noticing the emergence of white collar crimes being committed with the assistance of the new PC. By 1985, the United States Federal Law Enforcement Training Center started training agents in conducting investigations in the “automated environment” ; later in 1989, the FLETC Financial Fraud Institute started developing and creating software and protocols to deal with and follow the sudden emerging discipline of computer forensics.
Computer forensics is the analysis of information contained within and created with computer systems and computing devices, typically in the interest of figuring out what happened, when it happened, how it happened, and who was involved. The objective of computer forensics is to recover, analyze, and present computer based material in a way that it is useable in a court of law. The field of computer forensics is primarily concerned with forensic procedures, rules of evidence, and the legal process. Accuracy is the absolute priority in computer forensic cases not speed. Computer forensics is used in many types of civil and criminal investigations such as: divorce cases, corporate email fraud, and insurance fraud cases to name just a few.
Like any other criminal investigation computer forensics uses the three “C”’s: Care, Control, and Chain of Custody. Anyone who touches or comes into contact with E-evidence is at risk of contaminating it. To ensure that care and control are maintained the...