A to Z: Digital Forensics and Cyber Crime Investigations

Train investigators against anti-forensics, validate results with multiple tools, and establish forensics readiness through incident response, secure data storage, updated cfts, and cyber law compliance.

Identify data sources and ensure data quality for effective data acquisition. Apply automated tools to extract, filter, analyze, and interpret data for digital forensics.

Explore the major digital device types: smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktops, and learn how storage, operating systems, applications, metadata, and network connections yield digital evidence.

Learn essential Linux commands for digital forensics, including ls, ls -la, cd, pwd, mkdir, nano, cat, mv, rm, and sudo, with focus on file permissions and navigating the filesystem.

Learn how hard drives store data, compare hdd and ssd technologies, and explore tracks, sectors, rpm, read/write, track density, and nand flash, dram, and controllers for forensics.

Explore the logical structure of hard disks by examining file systems, clusters, and allocation units, and see how partitioning and slack space affect forensics and performance.

Understand the GUID, a 128-bit globally unique identifier used in Windows registry, COM, DLLs, and databases as keys, and explore GPT, the UEFI partitioning scheme replacing MBR with LBA addressing.

Master network forensics by collecting and analyzing traffic to identify incidents, preserve data with time synchronization and chain of custody, and guide incident response and secure storage.

Explore network protocols such as tcp/ip, http, ftp, smtp, dns and https, and learn how to investigate routers through configuration, firmware, logs, traffic, physical security, passwords, and external connections.

Explore the Wireshark interface and how to capture and export pcap files. Learn to analyze packets using display filters, statistics, and conversations between endpoints across networks.

Explore how network sniffing monitors and analyzes traffic by intercepting data packets, comparing active and passive sniffing, and using tools like Wireshark. Learn encryption and network segmentation as protections.

Explore how Wireshark intercepts and sniffs data packets, analyzes tcp three-way handshakes and tls/https traffic, and demonstrates filtering, decoding, and eavesdropping concepts in digital forensics and cyber crime investigations.

Explore common network based attacks and intrusions, including man-in-the-middle attacks, ddos, ransomware, and phishing, and learn practical steps to mitigate, monitor, and preserve digital evidence.

Explore the types of malware and their behaviors, including viruses, trojans, adware, banking trojans, fileless malware, and botnets, and learn how they spread and operate.

Analyze malware using static and dynamic methods to inspect code, metadata, and behavior in controlled environments, identifying signatures and evasive actions with tools like Ghidra, Immunity Debugger, Sysinternals, and Yara.

Analyze malware through reverse engineering using Ghidra to understand behavior, structure, and functionality, identify threats, and develop remedies to strengthen system security.

Explore memory forensics and volatile memory to detect malware. Apply four-step process: acquisition, preservation, analysis, and reporting; review tools like Volatility, Recall, Red line memories, and Lime Linux memory extractor.

Three real-time cyber incident case studies—SolarWinds, Fahim Saleh murder, and Capitol riot—illustrate how digital forensics analyze logs, artifacts, and geolocation to identify intrusions and suspects.

Explore digital forensics tools such as EnCase, Major, FTK Imager, Autopsy, and X forensics, to analyze hard drives, smartphones, and cloud data with keyword searches, file craving, and data visualization.

Explore creating and analyzing disk images with FTK Imager, performing bit-for-bit copies of drives or partitions, and examining deleted files, unallocated space, and hidden data in multiple formats.

Explore slack space in unallocated space and its preserved data. Use disk imaging and recovery tools to retrieve deleted files and fragments for forensic analysis.

Learn encryption and decryption techniques using tools such as zip with passwords and word document protection, and reflect on data confidentiality, integrity, and availability in lab settings.

Learn incident response and forensics readiness by building an effective incident response team that detects, contains, and mitigates cyber incidents, while preserving evidence and maintaining chain of custody.

Explore the three phases of digital forensics—pre-investigation, investigation, post-investigation. Learn planning, evidence handling, preservation, and reporting with standards and chain of custody for court-ready results.

Learn how to set up a forensics lab, plan staffing and ISO 17025 accreditation, and select hardware, software, and tools for secure evidence handling, analysis, and preservation in digital investigations.

Explore the investigation phase of digital forensics, including documenting the electronic crime scene, search and seizure, evidence preservation, data acquisition, and analysis for court admissibility.

Explore the post investigation phase, focusing on reporting, documentation, and expert witness testimony to present a concise, fact-based conclusion supported by evidence for court proceedings.