

The report also recommends increased sharing of high-quality forensic reference data that can be used for education, training, and developing and testing new forensic tools. To address this challenge, the report recommends better methods for information-sharing among experts and a more structured approach to testing forensic tools that would increase efficiency and reduce duplication of effort across labs. “If everyone starts using a new app, forensic tools won’t be able to read and understand the contents of that app until they are updated. “Digital evidence techniques don’t work perfectly in all cases,” Guttman said. The report also discusses several challenges that digital forensic experts face, including the rapid pace of technological change.

“And they all rely on fundamental computer operations that are widely used and well understood.” These are basic elements of a digital investigation,” said Barbara Guttman, leader of NIST’s digital forensics research program and an author of the study. “Copying data, searching for text strings, finding timestamps on files, reading call logs on a phone. They found that “digital evidence examination rests on a firm foundation based in computer science,” and that “the application of these computer science techniques to digital investigations is sound.”
#Example of a lab report file digital forensics software#
To conduct their review, the authors examined peer-reviewed literature, documentation from software developers, test results on forensic tools, standards and best practices documents and other sources of information. These reviews fill a need identified in a landmark 2009 study by the National Academy of Sciences, which found that many forensic disciplines lack a solid foundation in scientific research. The purpose of NIST scientific foundation reviews is to document and evaluate the scientific basis for forensic methods. This draft report, which will be open for public comment for 60 days, reviews the methods that digital forensic experts use to analyze evidence from computers, mobile phones and other electronic devices. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has published Digital Investigation Techniques: A NIST Scientific Foundation Review.
