Why are they never conclusive enough in the courts of law?
Forensics investigations is a step by step tracing for dots in a digital equipment to establish where the missing link is. Unlike traditional forensics, digital evidence acquisition can be a difficult process of wading through information in an attempt to discover activities that, in many cases, the perpetrators have taken steps to destroy. Attackers are making use of counter-forensics to destroy incriminating data and delay forensic investigations.
As a forensics investigator therefore, your task is to establish who, what, where, when, why it happened, how did it manifest. Regardless of which steps have been taken to damage available date, evidence must be gathered and examined and the useful must be separated from the irrelevant. In fact, an investigator is likely to fail when the subject under investigation has not taken any deliberate steps toward making the process even harder.
The challenge of forensics investigations lies in the component of the complexity in digital matters that involve cybercrime. Digital evidence is very volatile. This means that it can easily be tampered with and changed. When you are dealing with a forensics investigation or a related digital crime scene, you are working on a crime scene that expands jurisdiction. This is called multi-jurisdictions. In this instance, you are not fully in charge of the scene of crime. It can be accessed remotely. It is not physical, but rather a logical scene of crime.
The process of adducing evidence in courts of law. Most courts are beginning to embrace cyber laws that enshrine the accusation and tendering of digital evidence. Point in case is the example of an email header. Very few people will appreciate the integrities inside there like IP addresses and communication between various digital machines.
A forensics investigator will have to connect this email address to an individual which is sometimes difficult. You have to connect all the dots because these are machines sending information to each other. Sometimes forensics digital evidence is not wholesomely alone can adduce a case. It is collaborative with already existing physical evidence.
The training required to have a good forensic investigator is quit libellous and requires a lot of commitment. This is why government and private companies at times are hesitant to invest money. They think they are throwing their money to the waste. This is why companies continue to rely on foreign expertise who don’t understand the business environment. They provide a report of a forensic audit instead of a forensics investigation. Such evidence is not conclusive in the courts of law.
Forensics investigations should be carried out in digital forensics laboratories. Despite being in the digital era, most companies are not equipped with capabilities to conduct their own investigations. The tools needed at the crime scene to take crucial decisions are not readily available. Incidentally this is the place where the most can go wrong in an investigation. All the evidence can be tampered. This is why you see forensics investigations are not conclusive enough in the courts of law.
