An approach to digital evidence collection for successful forensic application: An investigation of blackmail case

Computer forensic is the practice of collecting, analyzing and reporting evidences in a way that is legally admissible “in open court” or “public” as a part of criminal investigation process. It can be used in the detection and prevention of crime and in any dispute where evidence is stored digitally. In this paper we presented case of criminal activity in progress where forensic using hacker tools helped to proactively prevent criminal act of blackmail in progress. This approach was acceptable to company owner because public case would bring negative publicity and because incident resolution time was very important criteria for this case. Many organizations suffer great losses because of missing implementing standards for information security that includes segregation of duties, and active monitoring. In this paper we described how we used network hacking for forensic investigation for the right cause which is to prevent criminal activity in progress. This paper shows how different techniques and tools can be jointly used in step by step process to successfully perform forensic analysis and reporting.