The primary purpose of a digital forensic investigative report is to clearly and accurately communicate findings to a varied audience, which may include non-technical stakeholders like lawyers, judges, and juries. Consistency in terminology, data representation, and the logical flow of the analysis is paramount to prevent ambiguity and ensure the report is understandable and credible. While a structured format is beneficial, rigid adherence to a specific format is less important than the report's internal consistency. An inconsistent report, even in a perfect format, can create confusion and undermine the entire investigation's validity.

B. False: This is incorrect. A report can adhere to a strict format but be rendered confusing and unreliable by inconsistent use of terms, references, or data presentation, making consistency the more critical factor for clarity.

1. Kent, K., Chevalier, S., Grance, T., & Dang, H. (2006). Guide to Integrating Forensic Techniques into Incident Response (NIST Special Publication 800-86).

Section 4.3, Reporting (Page 4-10): This section emphasizes that reports should be "thorough, accurate, and impartial" and tailored to the needs of the audience. This principle supports prioritizing clarity and understandability—achieved through consistency—over strict adherence to a single format. The content's quality is the focus.

2. Casey, E. (2011). Digital Evidence and Computer Crime: Forensic Science, Computers, and the Internet (3rd ed.). Academic Press.

Chapter 17, Reporting and Presenting Evidence, Section: "General Guidelines for Report Content" (pp. 589-590): The text stresses that a report must be a "stand-alone document" that is clear, concise, and unambiguous. It states, "Consistency is also important to avoid confusion... For instance, use consistent terminology and units of measure throughout the report." This directly highlights the importance of consistency for avoiding confusion.

3. Maras, M. H. (2014). Computer Forensics: Cybercriminals, Laws, and Evidence (2nd ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Chapter 10, The Computer Forensics Report, Section: "The Written Report" (p. 314): This university-level textbook explains that the report must be written with the audience in mind and avoid jargon. It notes, "The report should be a cohesive document... The report should be consistent." This reinforces that cohesion and consistency are fundamental attributes of a professionally written forensic report, essential for it to be understood and accepted.

The swap file (e.g., pagefile.sys in Windows) is a critical source of evidence that originates from Random Access Memory (RAM). Operating systems use the swap file as virtual memory, moving less-frequently used memory "pages" from physical RAM to this file on the hard disk to free up RAM for active processes. As a result, the swap file can contain remnants of running processes, network connections, user credentials, and other volatile data that was once resident in RAM. Forensic investigators analyze the swap file to recover this transient information, which may not be present in a live memory dump or may have been paged out before acquisition.

B. SAM file: This is the Security Account Manager file, which stores local user account password hashes, not a general cache for RAM data.

C. Data file: This term is too generic; it does not refer to a specific system file or location used for storing paged-out RAM contents.

D. Log file: Log files are used for recording system, service, or application events, not for storing the contents of physical memory.

1. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). (2006). Special Publication 800-86: Guide to Integrating Forensic Techniques into Incident Response. Section 3.2.2, "Volatile Data Collection and Examination," states, "...hibernation files (e.g., hiberfil.sys) and page files (e.g., pagefile.sys) on a hard drive can contain a wealth of information, because they are used to store the contents of RAM at a particular point in time."

2. Ligh, M. H., Case, A., Levy, J., & Walters, A. (2014). The Art of Memory Forensics: Detecting Malware and Threats in Windows, Linux, and Mac Memory. Wiley. Chapter 1, "Introduction to Memory Forensics," p. 4, explains how virtual memory systems use a paging file on disk to store memory pages that are not currently in physical RAM.

3. Carrier, B. (2005). File System Forensic Analysis. Addison-Wesley Professional. Chapter 13, "Content-Based Analysis," discusses how swap space can contain data from memory, including passwords and other sensitive information that has been paged out of RAM.

The file system of a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card, which stores critical and persistent data such as the International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI), security keys, contacts, and SMS messages, resides in non-volatile memory. This type of memory, typically Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EEPROM), retains its data even when power is removed from the SIM card. While a SIM also contains volatile memory (RAM) for temporary data processing and application execution, the permanent file structure must be stored in a non-volatile medium to ensure data integrity and persistence across power cycles.

A. Volatile: Volatile memory, such as RAM, loses all stored information when power is disconnected, making it fundamentally unsuitable for storing the permanent file system of a SIM card.

1. ETSI TS 102 221 V16.5.0 (2021-04), Smart Cards; UICC-Terminal interface; Physical and logical characteristics. Section 4.2, "UICC Architecture," describes the presence of a CPU, ROM, RAM, and Non-Volatile Memory (NVM), specifying that the NVM (e.g., EEPROM) is used for storing the file system and associated data.

2. Rasjid, Z. E., Wibisono, W., & Hori, Y. (2012). SIM Card File System and Its Forensic Analysis. International Journal of Computer Science and Information Security, 10(2), 109-114. In Section II.B, "SIM Card Architecture," the paper explicitly states, "The SIM card has its own file system which is stored in an EEPROM." EEPROM is a type of non-volatile memory.

3. Rankl, W., & Effing, W. (2010). Smart Card Handbook (4th ed.). John Wiley & Sons. Chapter 4, "Smart Card ICs," Section 4.2.3, "Memory," details that the file system and user data in a smart card (like a SIM) are stored in non-volatile EEPROM or Flash memory.

The Network Time Protocol (NTP) uses a hierarchical system of stratum levels to define the distance from a reference clock. Stratum 0 devices are the primary reference time sources, such as atomic or GPS clocks. Stratum 1 servers are directly connected to Stratum 0 devices. Each subsequent stratum level represents an additional network hop away from the reference clock. A Stratum 2 server synchronizes its time over the network from a Stratum 1 server. Following this logic, a Stratum 3 server gets its time over a network link, via NTP, from a Stratum 2 server, and this pattern continues for higher strata.

A. Stratum 0 devices are reference clocks (e.g., GPS), not servers on the network, and they are directly connected to the computers that become Stratum 1 servers.

B. A Stratum 1 server is directly attached to a UTC source; it does not use a network path for this primary synchronization.

C. This statement describes a Stratum 1 server. A Stratum 2 server gets its time from a Stratum 1 server over a network path.

1. Mills, D. (2010). Network Time Protocol Version 4: Protocol and Algorithms Specification. IETF. RFC 5905. Section 2.2, "Clock Discipline Algorithm", Page 11. "The stratum of a local clock is a number from 0 to 15... By convention, the stratum of a reference clock is 0... The stratum of a secondary server is one greater than the stratum of its synchronization source." https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC5905

2. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). (n.d.). Questions about the Internet Time Service (ITS). Time and Frequency Division. "Stratum 1 servers are attached directly to a time source such as a cesium clock or a GPS receiver. Stratum 2 servers get their time from stratum 1 servers, and so on."

3. Kurose, J. F., & Ross, K. W. (2017). Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach (7th ed.). Pearson. Section 7.3, "Network Time Protocol (NTP)", describes the hierarchical nature where a server at stratum k+1 synchronizes with a server at stratum k.

Static executable file analysis is a fundamental technique in computer forensics and malware analysis. It involves examining an executable file to understand its structure, code, and potential functionality without running the program. This method is considered safe as the potentially malicious code is never executed. Analysts inspect elements like the file header, embedded strings, imported and exported functions, and the disassembled code to gather intelligence about the file's purpose and origin.

B. This describes dynamic analysis, which is the opposite of static analysis, as it requires the file to be launched to observe its behavior.

C. While static analysis is done "without launching," the phrase "in a controlled and monitored environment" is characteristic of dynamic analysis (sandboxing), making this option confusing and less accurate than A.

D. This is the precise definition of dynamic analysis, where a file is executed within a secure, isolated environment (a sandbox) to monitor its actions safely.

1. Sikorski, M., & Honig, A. (2012). Practical Malware Analysis: The Hands-On Guide to Dissecting Malicious Software. No Starch Press. In Chapter 3, "Basic Static Analysis," the concept is introduced: "Basic static analysis consists of examining the executable file without viewing the actual instructions." (p. 41).

2. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). (2005). Special Publication 800-83: Guide to Malware Incident Prevention and Handling. Section 3.3.2, "Analyzing Malware," states, "Static analysis is the process of analyzing a file without executing it." (p. 24).

3. Eilam, E. (2011). Reversing: Secrets of Reverse Engineering. Wiley. Chapter 1, "Foundations," distinguishes between the two primary analysis methods: "Static analysis... is based on analyzing code without actually executing it... Dynamic analysis is based on information gathered during program execution." (p. 18).

The Automated Field Correlation approach is a data analysis technique used in exploratory data analysis and digital forensics. It involves systematically applying statistical methods, such as calculating Pearson or Spearman correlation coefficients, to every pair of fields (variables) within a dataset. This process automatically identifies the strength and direction (positive or negative) of linear or monotonic relationships between variables. The goal is to uncover significant patterns and dependencies across single or multiple fields without prior hypotheses, which directly matches the method described in the question.

A. Graph-based approach: This method models relationships as nodes and edges, focusing on network structure, paths, and connectivity rather than systematically calculating statistical correlation coefficients between all data fields.

B. Neural network-based approach: This approach learns complex, often non-linear relationships implicitly through its layered structure and weights during training. It does not perform an explicit, systematic check of pairwise correlations.

C. Rule-based approach: This approach applies a set of predefined "if-then" rules to data. It is used for classification or decision-making based on known conditions, not for discovering unknown statistical correlations.

1. James, G., Witten, D., Hastie, T., & Tibshirani, R. (2021). An Introduction to Statistical Learning: with Applications in R (2nd ed.). Springer. In Chapter 3, Section 3.3.3, the concept of the correlation matrix is discussed as a tool to systematically examine the pairwise correlations between all variables in a dataset. This forms the basis of an automated field correlation approach. (Available via Stanford University: https://web.stanford.edu/~hastie/ISLRv2website.pdf)

2. Guttag, J. V. (2016). 6.0002 Introduction to Computational Thinking and Data Science. MIT OpenCourseWare. Lecture 9, "Statistical Thinking," covers the computation of correlations between variables in a dataset as a fundamental step in data analysis. The accompanying code demonstrates the automation of this process to systematically compare fields. (See Lecture 9 notes and code examples).

3. Beebe, N. L. (2009). Digital Forensic Triage: An Application of Automated Forensic Hypothesis Generation and Testing. University of Texas at San Antonio, Department of Information Systems and Technology Management. This dissertation discusses the automation of forensic analysis, including "automated correlation" (Chapter 4, Section 4.2.2) to systematically identify relationships between different data artifacts, aligning with the principles of the automated field correlation approach.

A bit-stream copy, also known as a forensic image or physical acquisition, is a fundamental process in digital forensics. It involves creating an exact, bit-for-bit duplicate of a source storage medium, such as a hard drive or USB stick. This method captures all data on the device, including active files, deleted files that have not yet been overwritten, hidden partitions, and data in unallocated and slack space. The resulting copy is a forensically sound replica of the original evidence, ensuring that the integrity of the original medium is preserved while allowing for in-depth analysis on the copy.

B. This is incorrect because a bit-stream copy is file-system independent and captures more than just active NTFS files and folders.

C. This is incorrect because a bit-stream copy is not limited to the FAT32 file system; it applies to any file system or even raw, unformatted media.

D. This describes a logical acquisition, which only copies active files, not a bit-stream copy that captures all data including deleted files.

1. Nelson, B., Phillips, A., & Steuart, C. (2015). Guide to Computer Forensics and Investigations (5th ed.). Cengage Learning. In Chapter 3, "The Investigator’s Office and Laboratory," the text defines a bit-stream copy as a "bit-by-bit copy of the original storage medium that creates an exact copy of the original disk."

2. Kent, K., Chevalier, S., Grance, T., & Dang, H. (2006). Guide to Integrating Forensic Techniques into Incident Response (NIST Special Publication 800-86). National Institute of Standards and Technology. Section 3.2.1, "Imaging," states: "Imaging creates a bit-for-bit copy of the media... This is also known as a physical acquisition."

3. Carrier, B. (2005). File System Forensic Analysis. Addison-Wesley Professional. In Chapter 3, "Volume Analysis," the author describes physical acquisition as reading the raw data from the sectors of a disk, which is the essence of a bit-stream copy. He states, "The raw image file is a sequential, flat file that contains the raw data from the original disk."

A computer forensic report is the formal, written culmination of a digital investigation. Its fundamental purpose is to provide a complete, accurate, and objective account of the entire process. This includes detailing the initial request, the legal authority, the chain of custody for all evidence, the methods and tools used for acquisition and analysis, and the findings and conclusions drawn from the evidence. The report must be sufficiently detailed to allow another qualified examiner to reproduce the results and for non-technical stakeholders, such as courts or management, to understand the investigation's outcome.

B. False: This is incorrect because the statement accurately describes the primary function and required content of a computer forensic report, which is to serve as a comprehensive record of the investigation.

1. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). (2006). Special Publication 800-86, Guide to Integrating Forensic Techniques into Incident Response. Section 4.4, "Reporting," states, "The reporting phase involves reporting the results of the analysis, which may include describing the actions performed, explaining how tools and procedures were selected, determining what other actions need to be performed... The report should be written with the target audience in mind." This confirms the report's role in detailing the complete process.

2. Scientific Working Group on Digital Evidence (SWGDE). (2017). SWGDE Best Practices for Digital Forensics (Version 3.1). Section 5.3, "Reporting," specifies that a report should contain, at a minimum, administrative and case information, a list of evidence examined, the tools used, and a detailed explanation of the examination steps and findings. This underscores the requirement for detailed information on the complete process.

3. Palmer, G. L. (2001). A Road Map for Digital Forensic Research. Report from the First Digital Forensic Research Workshop (DFRWS). Section 6, "Presentation," discusses the need for forensic reports to present a "complete and accurate accounting of the actions taken and conclusions drawn." This foundational academic report establishes the principle of comprehensive documentation. (Available through DFRWS archives and cited in numerous academic curricula).

The statement is false. System software password cracking is the specific process of recovering passwords for system-level software, such as operating system accounts, BIOS/UEFI, or other system utilities. The provided definition incorrectly equates this specific technique with the general act of "cracking the operating system." Compromising an operating system is a broad outcome that can be achieved through various methods, including exploiting software vulnerabilities or social engineering, not just by cracking passwords. The definition presented is a categorical error, confusing a specific method with a general goal.

A. True: This option is incorrect because the statement provides an imprecise and overly broad definition, conflating a specific technique (password cracking) with a general outcome (compromising the system).

1. Al-Sultan, S., Al-Shehri, S., & Al-Harbi, S. (2021). A Comprehensive Survey on Password Cracking: Taxonomy, Tools, and Future Directions. IEEE Access, 9, 34318-34343. In Section I (Introduction), the paper defines password cracking as "the process of recovering passwords from their stored or transmitted forms," highlighting it as a specific process, not the general act of compromising a system. (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3060098)

2. Anderson, R. (2008). Security Engineering: A Guide to Building Dependable Distributed Systems (2nd ed.). Wiley. In Chapter 3.2, "Passwords" (p. 49), password cracking is described as an attack to guess passwords, typically by obtaining a copy of the password file and running guessing algorithms against it. This defines it as a specific attack on authentication credentials, not on the system as a whole.

3. Pfleeger, C. P., Pfleeger, S. L., & Margulies, J. (2015). Security in Computing (5th ed.). Prentice Hall. Chapter 5, "Authentication," details password cracking as a method to attack a password-based authentication mechanism, distinguishing it from other types of attacks on a system, such as exploiting software flaws.

The fundamental principle of digital forensics is the preservation of original evidence. All forensic analysis must be conducted on a forensically sound copy (a bit-stream image) of the original data, not on the original evidence itself. This practice prevents any alteration, corruption, or contamination of the source evidence, which could compromise its integrity and render it inadmissible in legal proceedings. The process involves creating a bit-for-bit duplicate of the original media and verifying its authenticity with cryptographic hashes (e.g., SHA-256). Working on a copy ensures that the original evidence remains in its pristine, unaltered state.

A. True: This is incorrect because directly analyzing original evidence violates the core forensic principle of evidence preservation. Any interaction, even viewing files, can alter metadata and compromise the integrity of the evidence.

1. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). (2006). Special Publication 800-86, Guide to Integrating Forensic Techniques into Incident Response.

Section 3.2, Collection, Page 14: "Create an exact copy of the original media before performing analysis. The analysis should be performed on the copy." This document explicitly states that analysis is to be done on a copy, not the original.

2. Carrier, B. D. (2003). A hypothesis-based approach to digital forensic investigations. (Doctoral dissertation, Purdue University).

Section 3.2.1, Preservation, Page 31: "The preservation phase is where data from the crime scene is saved. This is typically done by making a bit-by-bit copy of the original media... The original media is then stored in a secure location and the investigation continues with the copy." This academic source reinforces the standard procedure of copying evidence for analysis to preserve the original.

3. Casey, E. (2011). Digital Evidence and Computer Crime: Forensic Science, Computers, and the Internet (3rd ed.). Academic Press.

Chapter 7, Digital Evidence Acquisition, Page 239: "A fundamental rule in digital forensics is to make a copy of the original evidence and to perform the examination and analysis on the copy. This is to avoid altering the original evidence and to be able to produce the original evidence in its pristine state in court." This foundational text highlights the rule as essential for legal admissibility.