Forensic data recovery is used to recover data for legal purposes by qualified technicians. It involves accessing areas of a computer to verify specific activities of interest and recovering intentionally deleted, damaged, or corrupted data. Specialists are interested in information and use various techniques to make it meaningful. They must also use special procedures to avoid triggering security systems and work with information without changing or compromising it.
Forensic data recovery is a process used to recover data that will be used for legal purposes. This technique is classically used in criminal or civil investigations designed to provide information that can be used in court, although forensic data recovery can also be used by accounting firms and in a variety of other circumstances. This process is performed by qualified technicians who have studied computer science, information technology and forensics.
The need to recover data is not uncommon; many people have experienced lost or corrupted files at some point in their lives, and some are familiar with the techniques that can be used to restore or rebuild such data. Forensic data recovery is similar, but a little more complex, as it also includes accessing areas of a computer that would not normally be seen or used to verify specific activities of interest, along with data recovery which is intended to recover data which have been intentionally deleted, damaged or corrupted.
Sometimes, forensic data recovery is as simple as trying to piece together information on a damaged hard drive, disk, or memory card. Other times, it may include resurrecting data believed lost or deleted, bypassing security systems, or studying a computer system for traces of illegal activity. It can be applied to situations ranging from suspicious cases of creative accounting to analyzing a computer believed to belong to a sexual predator for incriminating or identifying information.
Instead of looking specifically for files, which is what most people do when engaging in data recovery, forensic data recovery specialists are primarily interested in information. They are not necessarily concerned with the form in which information is presented and may use a variety of techniques to fill in missing pieces or make information meaningful. For example, a technician could discover and restore a damaged or deleted partition, looking for traces of information that could reveal how and when the partition was used.
Because forensic data recovery specialists may work with computers that have been fitted with security measures to prevent forensic investigations, they must use special procedures to avoid triggering security systems that could compromise or erase data. They must also be able to work with information in a way that does not change or compromise it. For example, a technician might copy data from a hard drive found at a crime scene to another hard drive, resealing the original hard drive as evidence and working with the copy of the data.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
