A Didactic Tool for Digital Forensics

Abstract

Several tools exist for performing digital forensics investigations on evidence data. As the vast variety of options available provides a wide span of choices to select from, this variation itself contributes to the complexity of learning and navigating these tools. To facilitate user’s learning efforts, we present a didactic tool that can be used to explore different digital forensics tools for investigating various evidence files in different OS platforms. We use synthetically generated data in the form of a made up scenario that offers safe, realistic, yet reliable data analysis. The digital forensics tools we use are Autopsy, WinHex, ProDiscover, and StegHide; and we demonstrate the execution of these tools in two different OS platforms as Windows and Mac. Our tool is promising to offer explanation and deep insight into commonly available digital forensics tools, and is offered to serve digital forensics students and/or professionals.