The need for digital forensics as technology advances

Some of you may be young-at-heart enough to remember the days of Windows 95, 3.x, and even DOS (Disk Operating System). Smart watches, calculators, and many IoT devices today are much faster than the first generation of personal computers and servers. In 1995, it was common to come across hard disk drives between 4 GB to 10 GB, whereas today you can easily purchase drives with capacities of 2 TB and up.

Consider also the various types of storage media today, including Flash drives, SD cards, CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray discs, hybrid and solid-state drives, as compared to the older floppy disks, which at their most compact and efficient only stored 1.44 MB of data on a 3 ¼ inch disk. Although discussed in detail in a later chapter, we now have many options for not only storing data but also losing and hiding data.

With the advancement of technology also comes a deeper understanding of programming languages, operating systems both average and advanced, and knowledge and utilization of digital devices. This also translates into more user-friendly interfaces which can accomplish many of the same tasks as with the CLI, used mainly by advanced users. Essentially, today’s simple GUI, together with a wealth of resources readily found on search engines, can make certain tasks, such as hiding data, far easier than before.

Hiding large amounts of data is also simpler today, considering the speed of processors, combined with large amounts of RAM, including devices which can also act as RAM, far surpass those of as recent as five years ago. Graphics cards must also be mentioned and taken into consideration, as more and more mobile devices are being outfitted with very powerful high-end onboard NVIDIA and ATI cards which also have their own separate RAM, aiding the process. Considering all these factors does lend support to the idea put forth by Gordon E. Moore in the 1970s that states that computing power doubles every two years, commonly known as Moore’s Law.  

However, Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, has recently stated that Moore's Law is dying as GPUs (Graphic Processing Units) will ultimately replace CPUs due to the GPU's performance, technological advancements and abilities in handling artificial intelligence. Huang's statement was also mirrored by Intel CEO Brian Krzanich.

All things considered, several avenues for carrying out cyber crimes are now available, including malware and ransomware distribution, DoS and DDoS attacks, espionage, blackmail, identity theft, data theft, illegal online activities and transactions and a plethora of other malicious activities. Many of these activities are anonymous as they occur over the internet and often take place using masked IP addresses and public networks and so, make investigations that much harder for the relevant agencies in pinpointing locations and apprehending suspects.

With cyber crime being such a big business, the response from law enforcement officials and agencies must be equally impressive in their research, development, intelligence, and training divisions if they are to put up a fight in what may seem like a never-ending battle in the digital world.

Digital forensics not only applies to storage media but also to network and internet connections, mobile devices, IoT devices, and in reality, any device that can store, access, or transmit data. As such, we have a variety of tools, both commercial and open source, available to us depending on the task at hand.