Digital Evidence
Definition
Any information of probative value stored or transmitted in binary form. Latent, volatile in part, easily altered, and admissible only if integrity is provable through hashes and chain of custody.
- Storage form
- Binary form, stored or transmitted
- Key properties
- Latent, partly volatile, easily altered
- Admissibility requirement
- Provable integrity via hashes and chain of custody
Common questions
Why is digital evidence described as latent like a fingerprint?+
Digital evidence is not visible or meaningful without a tool to interpret it, much like a latent fingerprint needs development, so an investigator needs the right forensic software or hardware to extract and render the underlying binary data into something a court can understand and evaluate.
What does proving integrity through hashing actually establish?+
A cryptographic hash taken at the time of seizure and matched against the hash of the evidence at the time of analysis or trial demonstrates that the data has not been altered in between, which is central to admissibility because it substitutes for the kind of physical tamper-evidence available with a sealed evidence bag.
Related terms
- Bit-Stream Image
- Sector-by-sector exact copy of a storage medium, including unallocated and slack space. Created with dd, FTK Imager, EnCase or X-Ways. Output formats:...
- BSA 2023 Section 63 Certificate
- Mandatory certificate accompanying any electronic record produced as secondary evidence in Indian court. Replaces IEA Section 65B from 1 July 2024. Signed...
- Computer Forensics
- Application of investigative and analytical techniques to identify, preserve, acquire, examine and present digital evidence in a legally defensible manner. Five-stage pipeline:...
- Faraday Bag
- A signal-blocking pouch with conductive mesh lining that prevents cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and NFC signals from reaching a seized phone. The standard...
- Hash Value
- A fixed-length digital fingerprint produced by running a file through a cryptographic algorithm such as SHA-256 or MD5. Identical files produce identical...
- Order of Volatility
- The sequence in which digital evidence should be collected, ranked from most to least transient. Defined in RFC 3227. CPU registers and...
- Volatile Evidence
- Data that exists only while a system is running: active processes, logged-in sessions, network socket state, decryption keys in memory, and command...
- Write Blocker
- A hardware or software device interposed between a digital storage medium and the forensic workstation that prevents any write commands from reaching...