Computer Forensics: Foundations

This mock covers the foundations of Computer Forensics as set out in the FACT exam syllabus (Section B, Elective III, sub-section 1 — Computer Forensics). Thirty questions across the nine pillars a first-year MSc Cyber Forensics student must lock in before tackling case law, Windows-internals deep-dives, malware analysis, and reconstruction: computer hardware seen through a forensic lens (motherboard chipset, RAM volatility, HDD vs SSD, the CPU at the top of the order of volatility), the modern boot process (BIOS vs UEFI, MBR vs GPT, systemd as PID 1 on Linux), file-system fundamentals (NTFS journaling, FAT32's 4 GiB cap, ext4 extents and crtime), first-responder principles (RFC 3227 order of volatility, write blockers, volatile vs non-volatile classification), imaging and hashing (E01 vs raw dd, MD5 collisions vs SHA-256, hex digest lengths), search-and-seizure under post-2024 Indian law (BNSS replacing CrPC, IT Act 2000 sections 65/66/66A/66B with the Shreya Singhal strike-down), Windows artefacts (Registry hives and USBSTOR, Prefetch, the $I/$R Recycle Bin pair, the USN Journal), Linux artefacts (~/.bash_history, /var/log/, dot-file convention), and recovery techniques for deleted, hidden, and altered files (carving, slack space, NTFS Alternate Data Streams, what "delete" actually does).

It is pitched at BSc and first-year MSc cyber forensics students at NFSU, LNJN-NICFS, and other Indian universities, and at FACT and UGC-NET aspirants who need the Computer-Forensics foundations locked in. This sits at the introductory tier — vocabulary, definitions, and the most-asked concepts that anchor every later paper. It is **not** a duplicate of Mock #1 (which covers digital-forensics vocabulary across the whole field) — this mock drills specifically into Computer Forensics as a sub-discipline.

Topics covered:

• Computer hardware from a forensic angle: motherboard chipset, RAM volatility, HDD vs SSD with TRIM, the CPU at the top of the order of volatility
• Boot process and firmware: BIOS vs UEFI, MBR vs GPT, Linux systemd as PID 1
• File-system fundamentals: NTFS journaling, FAT32 4 GiB cap, ext4 extents and crtime
• First-responder principles: RFC 3227 order of volatility, hardware write blockers, volatile vs non-volatile
• Imaging and hashing: E01 vs raw dd, MD5 vs SHA-256, hex digest lengths
• Search and seizure under Indian law: BNSS 2023 (replacing CrPC), IT Act sections 65 / 66 / 66A / 66B with the 2015 Shreya Singhal strike-down
• Windows artefacts: Registry hives, Prefetch, $I/$R Recycle Bin pair, USN Journal
• Linux artefacts: ~/.bash_history, /var/log/, the dot-file hidden convention
• Recovery of deleted/hidden/altered files: file carving, slack space, NTFS Alternate Data Streams

Each question carries a detailed 220+ word explanation citing standard references (Carrier's File System Forensic Analysis, Casey's Digital Evidence and Computer Crime, Carvey on Windows Registry forensics, RFC 3227, NIST SP 800-86 and 800-88, NIST FIPS PUB 180-4, the IT Act 2000, the BNSS 2023, the Shreya Singhal judgment, and Microsoft / Linux kernel documentation). Allow 30 minutes; the explanations are long enough to use as study notes by themselves. If you can pass this mock comfortably, you have the Computer-Forensics vocabulary that the application-level mocks (#3 Windows artefacts, #4 mobile acquisition, #5 email forensics) build on.