Cyber Studies

It is very important to test and validate your digital forensic tools before use.  This not only gives you the confidence in your tools but allows you to testify in court that your tools were working properly before exposing important digital evidence to them.  Try your hand at developing a simple testing plan based on a specific software or hardware tool. For example, you may decide you want to test the forensic acquisition functionality of FTK Imager (which is available for free from http://www.accessdata.com/support/product-downloads); you may want to visit a site that provides free forensic software tools (like http://forensiccontrol.com/resources/free-software/) and test one you find there; or you could even choose something as simple as your own word processing software.  Pick just ONE specific aspect of the tool you choose (such as the ability of FTK Imager to capture physical memory, or the ability of your word processor to view a document’s properties or metadata), and design a simple step-by-step method to test or validate that aspects of the tool’s process.