Chapter 1. The Foundations and Principles of Digital Forensics

Everything around us is changing, the way that we communicate, how we do our work, how we store or retrieve data, and even the rate of life is changing. Technology is changing everything. Crime has its share of the change because the nature of targeted valuable assets has changed, it is digital now. The normal users can now perform monetary transactions without leaving their chair, and corporations and businesses of different sizes and types usually exchange their sensitive data using their local network. So in return, instead of breaking into banks or companies, crime has also gone digital. Nowadays, your personal information, bank account details, and your corporate database are some of the targets for digital criminals.

So, how can we investigate these crimes? The investigation concepts haven't changed. This is what we will look at in this introductory chapter.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• What is digital crime?
• Digital evidence
• Digital forensics goals
• Analysis approaches