Author: SalvationDATA Digital Forensics Team

8 Common Types of Digital Evidence Used in Modern Investigations

Posted on by SalvationDATA Digital Forensics Team

A large part of modern investigations now revolves around digital evidence. Smartphones, computers, cloud services, messaging apps, and online platforms continuously generate data that can reveal communications, user behavior, locations, and activity timelines.

This type of evidence plays an important role in criminal investigations, cybersecurity incidents, fraud cases, and corporate inquiries. Emails, chat records, videos, browser history, GPS data, and cloud files can all provide valuable investigative insights.

Because digital evidence exists across many different systems and devices, each type often requires different acquisition, preservation, and analysis methods. This article explores the most common types of digital evidence and their role in modern digital forensics.

Investigating the Dark Web: What Law Enforcement Personnel Should Know

Posted on by SalvationDATA Digital Forensics Team

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

Posted on by SalvationDATA Digital Forensics Team

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

Posted on by SalvationDATA Digital Forensics Team

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:

SPF Pro Beginner Tutorial – Mobile Forensics (Step-by-Step)

Posted on by SalvationDATA Digital Forensics Team

Before we could dive deep into mobile forensics practice, there is an initial preparation we should do, which is to understand the application of a professional mobile forensic tool.

Today, within minutes, we’re going to walk you through the essential practice of SalvationDATA’s most industry-grade mobile forensic tool, SPF Pro(SmartPhone Forensic System Professional).

After following today’s instructions, you’re definitely good to take actions and cope with your actual mobile forensics cases more effective.

Log Forensics: 5 Tips for Investigators

Posted on by SalvationDATA Digital Forensics Team

Nowadays, almost any kind of device generates some type of logs. At any point a scheduled or user-triggered action occurs, some type of logs are usually generated.

Although the main purpose of logs is debugging and troubleshooting, analyzing logs can also be important for digital forensic experts as they attempt to untangle what’s behind an incident or a digital crime.

There are many types of logs:

  • OS logs
  • Application logs
  • Database logs
  • Network logs
  • etc.

Analyzing them reveals what action has occurred, at what time, and who was using the device at the time of the incident.

You can think of log forensics as a combination of log analytics and computer forensics.

Various purposes of log forensics can include:

  • Tracing a hacker
  • Detecting a vulnerability
  • Disaster recovery

As a digital forensics investigator, knowing the theoretical aspects of the subject matter is a good starting point.

Whereas, it’s not enough to just be equipped with the awareness, since it’s also important to put this knowledge to practice, and that’s why we’ve devised a practical guide to aid you during the investigation.

DVR Data Recovery: Key Points to Remember

Posted on by SalvationDATA Digital Forensics Team

The purpose of having a DVR system in place is to ensure a higher level of security. In case of an incident or criminal activity, the video footage can be retrieved and examined to come to the bottom of what truly happened and bring the ones responsible to justice.

However, it’s more than common to encounter problematic DVR video footages when conduct video forensics.

Worse still, the DVR data recovery process is far from simple, especially if you’re dealing with mis-formatted, overwritten, or deleted files. Sometimes, there is nothing malicious about deleting old footage. In fact, DVR systems “incidentally” delete them automatically to make room for new footage to be saved.

Nevertheless, you’re going to need to be equipped with the right knowledge if you want to bring it back.

Today, we will discuss the reasons why data loss in DVR units can occur, give you guidelines on the most recommended route to take, and answers questions like what to do if you don’t have a backup at hand and what DVR data recovery procedure works best.

Cookie File Forensics: Types and Directives Explained

Posted on by SalvationDATA Digital Forensics Team

During the digital investigation process, a law enforcement or digital forensics professional may be tasked with having to investigate whether a suspect is involved in illegal activities that have to do with cyber crime such as hacking, dealings on the dark web, harassment, etc.

One of the ways to accomplish this is to seize and investigate the suspect’s computer or smart device to check up on their browsing history. To achieve it,  here’s where knowledge about the different cookies types and their uses comes in – by knowing what to look for, you’ll be able to successfully investigate their browsing activity and gather the necessary evidence that can hold its own in a court of law.

Today, we’ll cover:

  • What cookies files are
  • What information they store
  • The different types you should know
  • Where to look for them
  • What tools to use to recover them
  • Any regulatory cookie directives you should know
  • and more!

With this out of the way, let’s start with the basics.

What Can We Deduce From Audio & Video Forensics?

Posted on by SalvationDATA Digital Forensics Team

Audio and video forensics is a complex and constantly evolving subject, which is being tied with multiple different disciplines. During the work, you always have to put your comprehensive analytical thinking to the test in order to  become a qualified forensic video analyst.

Usually,  a qualified forensic video analyst ought to extract a wealth of information from the recorded video footage to crack the case effectively.

To make it possible, today we will take an in-depth look at some of the methods for forensic audio and video analysis and conquer the challenges you might bump into along the way.

With this out of the way, here’s what we can deduce from audio video analysis in digital forensics:

Top 10 Free eDiscovery Software for 2025

Posted on by SalvationDATA Digital Forensics Team

In the past, manually examining all the materials required for legal proceedings required an entire team of legal and IT professionals and many hours of work. There was no better way back then. The good news is that with the help of modern technology and automation, the entire eDiscovery forensic process can be reduced to a fraction of the time it takes to complete the work, saving you time and money.

By utilizing the free eDiscovery software we’ve reviewed below, you’ll be able to waltz through piles of documents and data like nothing, effectively tagging the areas of interest without having to lift a finger. Most of them let you export the findings in a manner the court will find admissible all while packing useful features such as giving you the option to convert the files to various formats and letting you share them through a secure online interface.

If you haven’t already, we invite you to familiarize yourself with the concept of eDiscovery by reading our intro guide. After you feel you have the basics down, go right ahead and read our short reviews and summaries on the best digital forensics tools the market has to offer in 2025, all of which also come with a free version.

Professional solutions

Digital Forensic Lab

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Video Investigation Portable 2.0

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Video Investigation Portable 3.0

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Evidence Write Blocker Docking Station

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