Email and Computer Forensics Investigations
Email Investigation with Computer Forensics
With email now the most common form of communications, email investigation is a core service of computer forensics. Email can provide a trail of evidence that includes source and direct and third party recipients. It can also contain sensitive and confidential messages as well as other attached documents or files.
As a member of the defense team or an individual suspected or charged by the authorities, email investigation and computer forensics is essential.
Where Does Email Go After Being Deleted
You should be aware that just because you have deleted an email it is not gone forever. On the contrary, email you delete remains on your computer for quite some time. While it will take acomputer forensics specialists to retrieve it, the email is usually still on the computer. A computer forensic expert can easily find deleted emails.
Another place emails you might think you deleted can remain are your company or your own servers. Work-related emails especially are often kept on servers for a certain amount of time and are accessible to your company’s network staff and your bosses. In fact, your bosses might be monitoring them and of course, your communications.
Email Investigation & You
Receiving a notice, such as a company memo or a legal notice, that you should not touch your computer or hard drive should signal you to possible email investigation by computer forensics experts and possibly impending litigation. Computers, hard drives, and even servers, might be seized during the process. This is to investigate not only files that may be on it but your emails as well, including the aforementioned deleted emails. These emails can be quickly recovered and used as evidence against you.
Conclusion
Since email is now a regular method of communication, it has become pivotal evidence and requires computer forensics specialists who not only recover data from years ago but also email thought long lost. Therefore, whatever you received, wrote, and attached can be used as evidence for and against you. This includes corporate and personal email even on web-based email like Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and Hotmail.
If you need Computer Forensic Consulting, please contact Jude LaCour Computer Forensics, http://www.JL-Forensics.com
