Computer forensics may be a vital branch of computing in reference to computer and Internet-related crimes. Earlier, computers were only wont to produce data but now it’s expanded to all or any devices associated with digital data. The goal of Computer forensics is to perform crime investigations by using evidence from digital data to seek out who was liable for that specific crime.
For better research and investigation, developers have created many computer forensics tools. Police departments and investigation agencies select the tools supported by various factors including budget and available experts on the team.
These computer forensics tools also can be classified into various categories:
Disk and data capture tools
File viewers
File analysis tools
Registry analysis tools
Internet analysis tools
Email analysis tools
Mobile devices analysis tools
Mac OS analysis tools
Network forensics tools
Database forensics tools
In this post, we are listing a couple of important and popular data forensics tools. Before proceeding further, i would like to form it clear that tools are added in random order. So, please don’t attempt to consider it as a ranking of the tools.
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Digital Forensics Framework
Digital Forensics Framework is another popular platform dedicated to digital forensics. The tool is open source and comes under the GPL License. It is often used either by professionals or non-experts with none trouble. It is often used for the digital chain of custody, to access the remote or local devices, forensics of Windows or Linux OS, recovery hidden of deleted files, quick look for files’ metadata, and various other things.
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Open Computer Forensics Architecture
Open Computer Forensics Architecture (OCFA) is another popular distributed open-source computer forensics framework. This framework was built on the Linux platform and uses the PostgreSQL database for storing data.
The digital forensics process. it’s available to download under a GPL license.
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CAINE
CAINE (Computer Aided Investigative Environment) is that the Linux distro created for digital forensics. It offers an environment to integrate existing software tools as software modules in a user-friendly manner. This tool is open source.
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X-Ways Forensics
X-Ways Forensics is a complicated platform for digital forensics examiners. It runs on all available versions of Windows. It claims to not very resource hungry as well as to figure efficiently. If we mention as well as the features, find the key features within the list below:
Disk imaging and cloning
Ability to read filing system structures as well as inside various image files
It supports most of the file systems including FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, exFAT, TFAT, NTFS, Ext2, Ext3, Ext4, Next3®, CDFS/ISO9660/Joliet, UDF
Automatic detection of deleted or lost as well as hard disc partition
Various data recovery techniques as well as powerful file carving
Bulk hash calculation
Viewing and editing binary data structures using templates
Easy detection of and access NTFS ADS
Well maintained file header
Automated activity logging
Data authenticity
Complete case management
Memory and RAM analysis
Gallery view for pictures
Internal viewer as well as for Windows registry file
Automated registry report
Extracts metadata as well as from various file types
Ability to extract emails from various available as well as email clients.
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EnCase
EnCase is another popular multi-purpose forensic platform with many nice tools for several areas of the digital forensic process. This tool can rapidly gather data from various as well as devices and unearth potential evidence. It also produces a report that supported the evidence.
This tool doesn’t come free of charge (see site for current pricing).
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Registry Recon
Registry Recon may be a popular registry analysis tool. It extracts the registry information from the evidence then rebuilds the registry representation. It can rebuild registries from both current and former Windows installations.
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