Digital Crime

Digital media and the Internet have provided new opportunities to perpetrate crime to Cyber Criminals. Criminals have evolved new strategies by exploiting technology and almost every crime these days involves electronic devices. This also led to evidence being captured and recorded at Computers, Global Positioning System on Mobiles, Social Networks, Emails and Website cookies.

Electronic evidence is derived from Computers, Networks, Mobiles, Digital Cameras, Storage devices as well as from the Internet. They must reflect the same set of factual information with no changes or alternations from the time of the offense for any testimony in legal proceedings.

The integrity of data is a challenge for any justice system since any data stored in electronic form can easily be manipulated. Electronic evidence is highly volatile, hence can be overwritten by usual function or lack of space. The correct acquisition and handling of electronic evidence are vital as every electronic device has a unique procedure to handle and must be obtained in compliance to ensure admissibility at Court. Any electronic evidence must be authentic, complete, reliable, believable and must be fair to the interest of justice. Data integrity should be maintained in a way to ensure the forensic chain of custody. A record of all actions of search, seizure, access, storage or transfer of data evidence should be created accurately, fully documented and preserved when handling electronic evidence.

The use of electronic evidence in the form of emails, transactional logs, internet browsing histories, data back-ups, audio-video digital files, instant messaging logs has increased. It is important as well as good practice to record search and seizure of digital evidence since methodology to obtain evidence is also important. Any evidence is only admissible & acceptable to Court, if the evidence is authentic, proper procedure was followed to obtain it and integrity of data is trustworthy.