Digital Forensics – A Branch of Forensic Science

Digital Forensics, also known as Digital Forensic Science is a branch of Forensic Science. Forensic Science is a scientific approach, a methodology of collecting and analyzing information. Forensic Science plays a very major role in Civil and Criminal Law enforcement activities. Digital Forensics, a branch of Forensic Science is deals mainly in recovering and analyzing or investigating data from the digital devices.



The term “Digital Forensics” was coined in 1990. Today, Digital Forensics is mostly used for analyzing data or evidences that are involved in civil or criminal cases.

Applications of Digital Forensics

1. Analyzing the evidences collected from digital devices or gadgets such as cell phones, laptops, hard disks, etc in civil or criminal cases.
2. The concept of Digital Forensics coined a new concept known eDiscovery. The term eDiscovery comes in when the techniques of Digital Forensics are use to solve the corporate issues. The procedure, tools, etc. used in eDiscovery are same as that of Digital Forensics but with increased limitations. 
3. Digital Forensics plays a key role during analysis of file artifacts. The various tools, tricks and techniques used in Digital Forensics make it possible to to retrieve Meta data and other relevant information from any sort of files or folders.
4. Often the data retrieved from devices such text messages, etc. helps the investigators to judge the hidden intentions of the criminals behind committing the crime. 

How Digital Forensics Works?

According to Judd Robbins, a well – known Digital Forensics Expert, there are following steps involved in Digital Forensics: -

• Identification of Hardware: - This step involves taking in custody of the hardware devices or gadgets from which we need to extract the information of evidences. No unauthorized personnel must be allowed to gain access to those devices.

• Collection of Data: - Each and every sort of data available must be collected.The data may include plain text messages, encrypted messages, files of various formats such images or CSVs, etc. The hard disks of the computers must be properly checked to collect any available data on it.
• Analysis of Data: - All the devices and the data must be properly analyzed. The deleted data must be recovered using the available tools and applications. The encrypted data must be decrypted so that it can be easily interpreted. data must also be extracted from the hidden files and folders. Every possible effort must be taken to extract useful evidences. During analysis phase, it is very important to document each and every step utilized in the procedure.

• Presentation of the evidence: - While presenting all the evidences in front of the respective judiciary, it is important to present the proofs of the investigation too. This is the point where the need of documentation occurs. Therefore, the experts must always maintain a proper documentation of the techniques applied by them. The Digital Forensics experts must always be ready to provide testimony in courts.

Thus, Digital Forensics covers a broad spectrum of Forensics Science and has become a vital tool for solving various complicated to complicated Civil and Criminal issues.