ABSTRACT
People’s personal computers contain a wealth of information about the individuals that use them. Items such as photographs, browser history, usernames, passwords, Word documents, and Excel spreadsheets can reveal a lot of facts about an individual’s identity and life. Computer forensics tools are used by law enforcement to examine what is on the media of a person suspected of committing a crime. The evidence could either help to convict or exonerate that person. Hackers can use the techniques of computer forensic examiners to wreak havoc on an individual or a company. By making a forensic image of a person’s hard drive, an attacker can have a bit-by-bit copy of that person’s data. Hashing is an extremely accurate calculation that produces a mathematical value in hexadecimal. If the hash value is the same for the original media and the copied media, the images are forensically equivalent.
