The two types of computer crime investigations are
computer-based crime and computer-facilitated crime.
In a computer-based crime, a computer or computers
are used as the vehicle to commit a crime. In computerfacilitated
crime, a computer is the target of a crime
(e.g., a hacking incident or theft of information).10
Computer-based crimes are activities such as child
pornography, cyberbullying, cyberstalking, spamming or
cyberterrorism. Typically, computers and/or hard drives
are seized as evidence and provided to a forensic expert
to analyze. When a computer has been the target of a
crime, usually the information system is compromised,
and information on the system or network is stolen, or
fraudulent documents are created. Digital forensics is
used to capture volatile information from random access
memory (RAM) and other running processes, including
networks.11 It is important for the forensics expert to
consider the following four areas of analyses:
• Storage media
• Hardware and operating systems
• Networks
• Applications