Why DVR Forensics Software Is a Must for Law Enforcement?

Video surveillance can be a powerful tool for law enforcement in their efforts to combat criminal activity and maintain peace and order in our society. When it comes to unlawful activities, it’s crucial to efficiently and effectively deal with those video-based evidence from video surveillance systems and hence a reliable DVR seems ready to come out at its call.

In today’s world, video surveillance has become an invaluable tool in the fight against crime. Its capability to record video footage of crime scenes and suspicious activities, has been a major asset to investigators who are looking to identify and gather evidence that may have been overlooked by traditional means.

Furthermore, it is an effective measure to deter criminals, since they are less likely to commit offenses when they are aware that they are being observed. With the appropriate video surveillance system in place, it is possible to ensure security and safety of an area, and to proactively prevent any criminal activity from occurring.

10 Questions to Ask a Forensic Video Analyst Before Hiring Them

Only by establishing proof beyond a reasonable doubt can the wrongdoers face the consequences of their actions and be brought to justice. Therefore, the first and foremost objective of digital video forensics (and any other criminal investigation for that matter) is to unveil the truth through concrete evidence and facts.

The video forensic expert you end up choosing for this task will be the one to oversee the investigation from the beginning to the end. Therefore, you should choose your forensic partner with discernment and evaluate their capabilities based on a pre-determined set of criteria.

Whenever you’re looking for ‘video forensics near me‘, you shouldn’t be willing to settle for anything less than forensic video analyst who knows their craft inside and out. To pick the most suitable candidate out of the bunch, start by asking them the following 10 questions:

The Best Digital Forensic Companies 2024

When looking for a reliable business partner that can deliver results and won’t let you down, it’s in your best interest to stick with the top digital forensic companies with a proven track record of client satisfaction. After all, picking wisely could mean the difference between solving the mystery of the case and bringing the perpetrators to justice or letting them roam free.

By incorporating with the most wise considerations for selecting digital forensic companies, you would easily end up selecting one among a variety of them.

Also, to keep you from having to do the detailed research yourself, we’ve done the heavy lifting for you and listed the top 10 digital forensics companies that are widely recognized in the industry:

The Top 20 Open Source Digital Forensic Tools for 2024

As you strive to advance your career and become a more well-rounded digital forensics analyst, researching about new and innovative ways to help you crack the case is a natural part of the process.

To that end, you’re inclined to look into new digital forensic tools to stay on top of your investigative game and utilize the digital forensics technology to its fullest potential.

Unfortunately, many law enforcement agencies are underfunded, so they are inclined to look for ways to keep the costs low as to not exceed their budget limitations. Hence, the need for using open source software.

With this in mind, we have compiled a list of the best open source forensic tools in existence. However, when using open source digital forensic tools, have you ever wondered, how much do you really benefit from using the so-called “free” open source tools?

Given all the hidden risks that come in the form of malware, not being compliant with the industry’s best practices, no developer support or assistance whatsoever, and simply being out of date?

Just scroll down until the end of the article and we will also show you why a paid solution will get you much further during a digital forensic investigation.

free GPL license.

Many of these free open source tools come under the free GPL license.

In no particular order of importance, below you can find a comprehensive computer forensic tools list that is distributed under the open source agreement license, thus being completely free to use for every individual and law enforcement personnel:

6 Crucial Tips to Effectively Conduct Forensic Video Investigation

Working as a forensic video analyst, you could always encounter challenges during your work, which could sometimes severely impact and even lead to your case cracking and investigation being in vain.

However, it doesn’t mean you’re out of chances to improve the expected outcome of your investigative cases.

Based on our over 20 years project experience working with forensic video experts on various successfully closed cases all over the world, below few crucial tips is of some help to effectively conduct your forensic video investigation.

Write a Forensic Report Step by Step [Examples Inside]

To present the evidence in a way the court deems admissible and bring the guilty to justice, formulating a coherent and comprehensive digital forensics report is crucial. Without one, retelling the events that occurred in a structured manner, all while backing up every claim with concrete evidence, would be next to impossible (hence they are a requirement in the court proceedings).

Digital forensics reports play an instrumental role in coordinating the work between multiple investigators, law enforcement officers, administrative, and legal personnel involved in the case, not all of which may share the same professional background and field of expertise.

They are the interdisciplinary focal point that tells the truth of what happened and documents the findings, all while presenting them in a factual yet understandable manner.

At the same time, investigators should keep in mind that other law enforcement institutions may ask for the report in order to:

  • Get a recap of events
  • Determine the next steps to take
  • Review the evidence
  • Verify what digital forensics tools have been used
  • Get an overview of the investigation’s objectives
  • etc.

Before we reveal the exact steps on how to formulate one, keep in mind that the exact structure of a digital forensic report depends on the case, which means what you will find below is a general overview of the entire process in a step-by-step manner as well as a general outline to follow which should give you some ideas on how to tackle the task at hand.

To give you a better idea how the final result should look, we’ve also provided some concrete digital forensic report examples from different cases.

With that out of the way, let’s begin with :

What are the 8 Types of Digital Evidence?

To bring the guilty to justice, correctly collecting, analyzing, and presenting the right evidence is quintessential. Before proceeding with the investigation, however, you’re going to need to know where and how to look for certain digital evidence.

After all, collecting different types of digital evidence requires different tools and methodologies to be used in the process.

When it comes to digital evidence, in essence, it can be anything from logs and all the way to video footage, images, archives, temporary files, replicant data, residual data, metadata, active data, and even data that’s stored inside a device’s RAM (otherwise known as volatile data), as long as they are regarded as part of clue for a digital investigation.

To get a better understanding of handling essential types of digital evidence during an investigation, we’re going to go through each of these and cover any intricacies that might be involved.

Investigating the Dark Web: What Law Enforcement Personnel Should Know

Although the search engine crawlers and various digital archives have managed to index almost every digital thing in existence, not everything that takes place on the internet is visible to everyone.

Ask yourself this:

  • Can anyone access your email inbox or personal messages?
  • What about your bank account’s transaction history?

Just like certain parts of our lives (such as what we do in the bathroom or in the bedchambers), some parts of the internet should stay private.

In fact, it’s a necessity.

However, a very small percentage of the internet (roughly 0.01%) consists of places that are darker and much more sinister.

Behold the depths of the internet otherwise known as the dark web.

Email Forensics – Definition and Guideline

The reason email forensics come into part of the digital forensics investigation is due to the massive and common use of emails among people nowadays.

People’s using email to communicate with their friends, schoolmates, colleagues and a variety of people. Hence, numerous data and information is transmitted across its use and meanwhile some of those are illegal not surprisingly just like what other common communication approach, e.g. mobile phone, has happened as well when it was popularized to certain extend.

In fact, it’s already a severe public concern that a majority of criminals are using email for their crime committed in recent years, especially when it comes to cyber security and digital crime. Not only that, increasingly noncomputer crimes and even civil litigation, has been related to emails.

That’s being said, we do want to unveil the operation theory of email and thus extract email related crimes via email forensics to bring the criminals to justice.

6 Types of Online Banking Fraud: Guidelines for Investigators

As technology evolves, cyber criminals keep coming up with new creative ways to get around the system and defraud people out of their hard-earned money.

Although banks rarely share the details of an incident that’s connected to online banking fraud unless it’s a global breach, data suggests that banking-related crimes are on the increase.

According to Security Magazine:

  • All types of banking fraud grew by 159% between Q4 2020 and Q1 2021
  • In 42% of cases the fraudster takes control over the victim’s bank account
  • Online banking accounted for 93% of all fraud attempts in 2021
  • Android users are twice as likely to experience fraud compared to iOS users

But how do these fraudsters manage to drain so many bank accounts, given that most modern banks and financial institutions tend to take their security quite seriously?

In practice, digital forensic investigators are observing the following prevailing types of online banking fraud: