📖 About this Domain
This domain covers anti-forensics, which are techniques used to frustrate computer forensic investigations. You will study methods for data hiding, artifact wiping, and trail obfuscation to prevent evidence collection. The focus is on identifying and countering these measures to preserve digital evidence integrity.
🎓 What You Will Learn
- Identify various data hiding techniques, including steganography, alternate data streams (ADS), and hidden partitions.
- Understand how encryption is used as an anti-forensic method and the approaches to handle encrypted evidence.
- Recognize the effects of artifact wiping tools that perform file shredding, disk cleaning, and log manipulation.
- Learn about trail obfuscation tactics like using proxies, anonymizers, and IP spoofing to mask an attacker's identity.
🛠️ Skills You Will Build
- Proficiency in using forensic tools to detect and extract data concealed via steganography and ADS.
- The ability to identify traces of data wiping utilities and attempt recovery from unallocated clusters or file slack.
- Competency in analyzing system and network logs to uncover evidence of trail obfuscation and anonymizer usage.
- Skill in recognizing encrypted containers and applying appropriate methodologies for potential decryption or analysis.
💡 Top Tips to Prepare
- Master the technical differences between steganography and cryptography as anti-forensic methods.
- Practice identifying file and disk artifacts left behind by common data wiping and overwriting utilities.
- Focus on how file system metadata is altered or destroyed by anti-forensic techniques.
- Understand the command-line syntax and functionality of tools used to create and detect alternate data streams.
📖 About this Domain
This domain focuses on the forensic investigation of operating systems to uncover digital evidence. It covers methodologies for analyzing system artifacts, volatile memory, and file systems on both Windows and Linux platforms. The core objective is to reconstruct user and system activities from digital remnants.
🎓 What You Will Learn
- You will learn to conduct Windows forensics by analyzing the Registry, event logs, and file system structures like the MFT.
- You will learn Linux forensics, focusing on file systems such as ext4, system logs, and shell history analysis.
- You will learn volatile data collection and analysis, including capturing RAM dumps and examining running processes and network connections.
- You will learn to identify and extract key system artifacts like prefetch files, LNK files, and shadow copies for timeline reconstruction.
🛠️ Skills You Will Build
- You will build the skill to use forensic suites like Autopsy and command-line tools like Volatility for deep system analysis.
- You will build the ability to parse and interpret complex data structures within the Windows Registry hives.
- You will build proficiency in recovering deleted files and data fragments from various file system types.
- You will build the capability to correlate data from multiple OS sources to create a coherent event timeline.
💡 Top Tips to Prepare
- Master the Windows Registry structure, particularly key hives like SAM, SYSTEM, and NTUSER.DAT, as they are frequent exam topics.
- Practice command-line analysis on both Windows and Linux systems to understand native logging and system information retrieval.
- Understand the order of volatility to correctly prioritize evidence collection from a live system.
- Familiarize yourself with the locations of critical log files and artifacts in both Windows (e.g., %SystemRoot%\System32\winevt\Logs) and Linux (e.g., /var/log).
📖 About this Domain
This domain focuses on the final stage of a digital forensic investigation, which is the documentation and communication of findings. It covers the creation of a formal, legally defensible forensic report. The report must accurately detail the investigative process, evidence analysis, and conclusions for both technical and non-technical audiences.
🎓 What You Will Learn
- You will learn the standard components of a forensic report, including the executive summary, evidence acquisition details, analysis methodology, and detailed findings.
- You will learn how to document the chain of custody and forensic procedures to ensure the report's admissibility in legal proceedings.
- You will learn techniques to present complex technical data, such as file system artifacts and network logs, in a clear and understandable format.
- You will learn the role and responsibilities of an expert witness and how to prepare for testimony and cross-examination based on your report.
🛠️ Skills You Will Build
- You will build technical writing skills to produce objective, concise, and accurate forensic reports that withstand legal scrutiny.
- You will build the ability to articulate the entire forensic lifecycle, from evidence seizure to the final conclusion, in written form.
- You will build skills in presenting digital evidence effectively to diverse audiences, including legal counsel, judges, and juries.
- You will build the skill of creating supporting documentation, such as evidence logs and exhibits, that validate the findings in your report.
💡 Top Tips to Prepare
- Master standard forensic report templates and understand the purpose of each section, like the methodology and findings.
- Practice articulating technical concepts like file hashes, timestamps, and metadata in simple, non-technical language.
- Review case studies to understand how forensic reports are used in actual legal cases and the common points of challenge.
- Ensure you can clearly differentiate between factual findings from evidence and your expert opinion within a report.
📖 About this Domain
This domain covers the forensic analysis of email-based evidence. You will explore methodologies for tracking and investigating crimes committed via electronic mail. The focus is on extracting artifacts from email clients and servers to build a case.
🎓 What You Will Learn
- You will learn to analyze email headers to trace the origin and path of malicious emails.
- You will understand the roles of email protocols like SMTP, POP3, and IMAP in evidence collection.
- You will learn techniques for recovering deleted emails from various client and server storage files.
- You will explore methods for investigating email spoofing, phishing, and spamming incidents.
🛠️ Skills You Will Build
- You will build the skill to perform detailed email header analysis to identify spoofing and trace message routes.
- You will develop proficiency in using forensic tools to extract and parse email data from files like PST and MBOX.
- You will build the ability to correlate email server logs with client-side artifacts for a comprehensive investigation.
- You will gain the skill to recover and reconstruct email evidence while maintaining the chain of custody.
💡 Top Tips to Prepare
- Focus on understanding the structure of an email header and the meaning of each field as defined by RFCs.
- Practice analyzing different email storage formats, such as PST, OST, and MBOX, using common forensic utilities.
- Memorize the functions and port numbers of key email protocols like SMTP, POP3, and IMAP.
- Review case studies on email-based crimes to understand how header and log analysis are applied in real-world scenarios.
📖 About this Domain
This domain focuses on the forensic investigation of web-based attacks. It covers the methodologies for analyzing web server logs and related artifacts to identify attack vectors. You will learn to trace malicious activities targeting web applications.
🎓 What You Will Learn
- You will learn to recognize attack signatures for common web exploits like SQL injection, Cross-Site Scripting (XSS), and directory traversal.
- You will learn to analyze various web server log files, including Apache and IIS logs, to find indicators of compromise (IOCs).
- You will learn the techniques for tracing an attacker's activities by correlating log entries and session data.
- You will learn to identify and investigate attacks against web-based email services and content management systems (CMS).
🛠️ Skills You Will Build
- You will build the skill to parse and interpret raw web server access and error logs for forensic evidence.
- You will build the ability to reconstruct the timeline of a web attack from initial reconnaissance to final payload execution.
- You will build proficiency in using command-line tools like grep and awk for efficient log file analysis.
- You will build the competence to differentiate between legitimate traffic, automated scanners, and targeted attack attempts.
💡 Top Tips to Prepare
- Memorize common HTTP request methods and status codes to quickly identify anomalous server responses.
- Practice analyzing real-world, sanitized log files to develop pattern recognition for different attack types.
- Focus on understanding the OWASP Top 10, as these vulnerabilities are the foundation for most web attack vectors.
- Learn to identify common web attack tool user-agents and signatures within log data.
📖 About this Domain
Network Forensics focuses on the capture, recording, and analysis of network traffic to investigate security incidents. This domain covers the methodologies and tools used to examine network data to find evidence of malicious activity. You will learn to trace digital artifacts left behind during network-based attacks.
🎓 What You Will Learn
- Understand core network protocols and how to analyze logs from devices like firewalls and IDS.
- Learn techniques for live network traffic acquisition using tools such as Wireshark and tcpdump.
- Explore methods for investigating attacks on wireless networks and analyzing related artifacts.
- Grasp the process of correlating event logs from multiple network sources to reconstruct an incident timeline.
🛠️ Skills You Will Build
- Ability to perform deep packet inspection and protocol analysis on captured PCAP files.
- Skill in identifying network-based indicators of compromise (IOCs) and attack signatures.
- Competency in using network forensic tools for evidence collection and flow analysis.
- Proficiency in analyzing logs from routers, proxies, and intrusion detection systems for forensic evidence.
💡 Top Tips to Prepare
- Master the TCP/IP protocol suite and the OSI model to understand data flow and vulnerabilities.
- Gain hands-on experience by analyzing sample PCAP files to recognize common attack patterns.
- Memorize well-known port numbers and their services to quickly spot anomalous network connections.
- Focus on understanding the structure and content of logs generated by various network devices.
📖 About this Domain
This domain details the low-level structure of hard disks and the logical organization of data through file systems. It focuses on how operating systems manage storage, which is foundational for forensic data acquisition and analysis. Understanding these concepts is critical for locating and interpreting digital evidence at the disk level.
🎓 What You Will Learn
- You will learn about hard disk drive architecture, including components like platters, read/write heads, tracks, sectors, and clusters.
- You will understand the structure of partition schemes like Master Boot Record (MBR) and GUID Partition Table (GPT).
- You will explore the architecture of key file systems, including FAT, NTFS, and Ext, focusing on their metadata structures.
- You will learn about data hiding locations such as file slack, unallocated space, and the Host Protected Area (HPA).
🛠️ Skills You Will Build
- You will build the skill to manually parse partition tables and file system boot records using a hex editor.
- You will develop the ability to analyze file system metadata to trace file activity and recover deleted file information.
- You will gain proficiency in identifying and carving data from unallocated space and slack space on a disk image.
- You will be able to differentiate between logical and physical disk structures for forensic imaging and analysis.
💡 Top Tips to Prepare
- Focus on the differences between FAT, NTFS, and Ext file systems, particularly their methods for storing file metadata.
- Practice using a hex editor to view raw disk sectors and identify key structures like the MBR signature (55 AA).
- Memorize the components of the NTFS Master File Table (MFT) and the function of key attributes like $STANDARD_INFORMATION and $FILE_NAME.
- Understand the concept of clusters versus sectors and how file slack is created during data storage operations.
📖 About this Domain
This domain focuses on the core forensic process of collecting digital evidence from electronic devices. You will learn how to create a forensically sound duplicate, or bit-stream image, of the original media while maintaining data integrity.
🎓 What You Will Learn
- Understand various data acquisition methods, including static (dead-box) and live acquisition.
- Differentiate between physical, logical, and sparse acquisition techniques for different investigation scenarios.
- Learn the function of hardware and software write-blockers to prevent modification of original evidence.
- Grasp the use of hashing algorithms like MD5 and SHA-256 to verify the integrity of forensic images.
🛠️ Skills You Will Build
- Creating bit-for-bit copies of storage media like hard drives and USBs using forensic imaging tools.
- Validating the integrity of an acquired image by comparing source and destination hash values.
- Executing data acquisition from volatile memory (RAM) to capture transient evidence.
- Properly documenting the acquisition process to maintain the chain of custody.
💡 Top Tips to Prepare
- Master the distinction between a simple file copy and a true forensic bit-stream image.
- Practice with imaging tools like FTK Imager or command-line utilities like dcfldd in a controlled lab.
- Memorize the order of volatility to prioritize evidence collection from most volatile to least volatile.
- Focus on how write-blockers work at a technical level to prevent any writes to the source media.
📖 About this Domain
Mobile Forensics focuses on the systematic recovery and analysis of digital evidence from mobile devices. This domain covers the methodologies for handling diverse mobile platforms, storage types, and the challenges posed by device security and data volatility.
🎓 What You Will Learn
- You will learn mobile device architecture, including file systems like YAFFS2 and F2FS, and internal memory structures like NAND flash.
- You will understand data acquisition techniques such as physical, logical, and file system acquisition for Android and iOS devices.
- You will explore methods for bypassing device security, including passcodes, patterns, and full-disk encryption.
- You will learn to analyze key mobile artifacts like call logs, SMS/MMS, application data from SQLite databases, and GPS location data.
🛠️ Skills You Will Build
- You will build skills in performing forensically sound data extraction using specialized tools like Cellebrite UFED and Oxygen Forensic Detective.
- You will develop proficiency in advanced acquisition techniques like JTAG and chip-off forensics for inaccessible devices.
- You will gain the ability to parse and analyze data from application-specific files, such as SQLite databases and Property List (Plist) files.
- You will build the skill to properly document the chain of custody and report findings from a mobile device examination.
💡 Top Tips to Prepare
- Focus on the key differences between physical, logical, and file system acquisition methods and their applicability.
- Memorize the common file system structures for both Android (e.g., EXT4) and iOS (e.g., APFS) to navigate data effectively.
- Practice using forensic tools to parse SQLite databases, as they are a primary source of user data in mobile apps.
- Stay current with the latest mobile OS updates and security patches, as they frequently change forensic procedures.
📖 About this Domain
Malware Forensics focuses on the systematic analysis of malicious code to determine its purpose, origin, and impact. This domain provides the methodology for dissecting malware samples using static and dynamic analysis techniques in a secure environment. It is a critical component of incident response and threat intelligence.
🎓 What You Will Learn
- You will learn the core concepts of malware analysis, including the distinction between static and dynamic analysis.
- You will identify various malware categories like viruses, worms, trojans, rootkits, and ransomware based on their characteristics.
- You will explore the tools and environments used for malware forensics, such as sandboxes, disassemblers, and debuggers.
- You will understand how to extract Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) from malware samples for threat hunting.
🛠️ Skills You Will Build
- The ability to perform static analysis to examine malware binaries without executing them.
- Competency in executing malware in a controlled sandbox to observe its behavior and network traffic.
- Proficiency in basic reverse engineering to understand the functionality of malicious code.
- Skill in documenting and reporting malware analysis findings, including host-based and network-based artifacts.
💡 Top Tips to Prepare
- Master the differences between static and dynamic analysis and know when to apply each technique.
- Familiarize yourself with common malware persistence mechanisms, such as registry key modifications and scheduled tasks.
- Practice identifying file signatures and packed code, as these are common evasion techniques used by malware.
- Set up a basic virtualized lab environment to safely practice analyzing malware samples and using forensic tools.
📖 About this Domain
This domain covers the structured methodology for conducting a digital forensic investigation. It details the systematic steps from the initial incident response and evidence seizure to the final analysis and reporting. Understanding this process is critical for maintaining evidence integrity and ensuring findings are admissible in legal proceedings.
🎓 What You Will Learn
- You will learn the roles and responsibilities of a first responder at a digital crime scene, including securing the area and identifying potential evidence.
- You will learn the procedures for evidence handling, emphasizing the critical importance of establishing and maintaining the chain of custody.
- You will learn various data acquisition techniques, including creating bit-stream images of storage media and capturing volatile data from live systems.
- You will learn how to structure and write a comprehensive computer forensics report that details the investigation process and findings.
🛠️ Skills You Will Build
- You will build the skill to apply a systematic investigation model to any digital forensics case.
- You will build proficiency in documenting every step of the investigation to ensure repeatability and defensibility.
- You will build the ability to perform forensically sound data acquisition without altering the original evidence.
- You will build competence in managing and tracking digital evidence from seizure to presentation in court.
💡 Top Tips to Prepare
- Memorize the distinct phases of the computer forensics investigation process, such as preparation, collection, examination, analysis, and reporting.
- Focus on the legal and procedural importance of the chain of custody form and how to document it correctly.
- Understand the difference between acquiring volatile memory (RAM) and non-volatile storage (hard drives) and the tools used for each.
- Practice applying the investigation process to case study scenarios to understand how the steps connect in a real-world context.
📖 About this Domain
This domain introduces the fundamental concepts of computer forensics. It establishes the context for digital investigations in response to cybercrime, corporate espionage, and policy violations. You will learn the core purpose and process of forensic analysis in a modern technological landscape.
🎓 What You Will Learn
- The formal definition of computer forensics and its primary objectives in digital investigations.
- How to differentiate between various types of digital evidence and understand their volatility.
- The critical importance of legal considerations, including the chain of custody and rules of evidence.
- The specific roles and responsibilities of a computer forensics professional in an incident response scenario.
🛠️ Skills You Will Build
- Ability to identify potential sources of digital evidence across diverse systems and network devices.
- Competency in applying the principles of the forensic process model from seizure to presentation.
- Understanding of the legal and ethical protocols required to ensure evidence admissibility in court.
- Skill in articulating the scope and objectives of a digital forensic investigation based on initial incident data.
💡 Top Tips to Prepare
- Memorize the key stages of the computer forensics investigation process: identification, preservation, analysis, and reporting.
- Focus on the legal concept of chain of custody and why documentation is critical for forensic integrity.
- Understand the difference between public and private sector investigations and their respective legal authorities.
- Drill down on the types of computer crimes and how forensic techniques are applied to each specific scenario.
