Justice Information Sharing

This course provides the fundamental knowledge and skills required to preview and acquire images from Windows-based and macOS-based computers, mobile devices, and removable storage media in a forensically sound manner.

Presentations and hands-on practical exercises cover the following topics:

• Storage media and how data is stored;
• Firmware interfaces (BIOS, UEFI);
• The previewing process;
• Live and dead-box previewing;
• The forensic acquisition process;
• Tool validation;
• Hardware and software write blockers;
• Forensic image formats; and
• Multiple forensic acquisition methods.

Students will use free and commercial third-party tools that are currently used by practitioners in the field.

This course provides students with the fundamental knowledge and skills necessary to perform a limited digital forensic examination, validate hardware and software tools, and effectively use digital forensic suites and specialized tools. The course begins with a detailed review of the digital forensic examination process, including documentation, case management, evidence handling, validation, and virtualization. Students learn to use today's leading commercial and open source digital forensic suites: Magnet Axiom, X-ways Forensic, and Autopsy. Instruction on each suite will include an interface overview, configuration, hashing, file signature analysis, keyword searching, data carving, bookmarking, and report creation.

This course provides expert guidance in the skills law enforcement officers need to conduct successful online investigations. Topics include IP addresses and domains, an overview of currently popular social media platforms, best practices for building an undercover profile, foundational knowledge related to the dark web, and the use of the dark web as an investigative tool. Instructors demonstrate both open source and commercially available investigative tools for social engineering, information gathering, and artifacts related to social media, as well as automated utilities to capture information and crawl websites.

This course covers the acquisition, examination, and analysis of many types of financial records, including bank statements and checks, wire transfer records, and business records. Topics include recognizing and investigating common indicators of fraud, using spreadsheets to facilitate analysis and pattern recognition, and financial profiling. There is a strong focus on presenting financial evidence in multiple modalities: spreadsheet data outputs, graphic representations, and written/oral presentations.