How Artificial Intelligence can help in Digital Forensics

1. Define Forensics

Forensics is basically scientific tests or techniques used in connection with the detection of
crime. It is an aspect of science known as criminalistics where science is applied to criminal
and civil law. Forensic analysts or examiners collect, preserve, and analyze evidence during
the course of an investigation.

2. Define Digital Forensics

The use of scientifically derived and proven methods toward the preservation, collection,
validation, identification, analysis, interpretation, documentation and presentation of digital
evidence derived from digital sources for the purpose of facilitating or furthering the
reconstruction of events found to be criminal, or helping to anticipate unauthorized actions
shown to be disruptive to planned operations.

Digital forensic examinations use computer-generated data as their source. The goal of any
given forensic examination is to find facts, and via these facts to recreate the truth of an
event. The examiner reveals the truth of an event by discovering and exposing the remnants
of the event that have been left on the system. Due to the wide variety of potential data
sources, digital forensics tools often have different specialties. There are forensic tools for
Disk analysis, Image creation, Network analysis and many more.

There are various types of digital forensic examinations. Each deals with a specific aspect of
information technology. Some of the main types include the following: Database forensics,
Email forensics, Malware forensics, Memory forensics, Mobile forensics and Network
forensics. Digital forensics has played major roles in crime investigations in our modern
world and examples of such crime investigations are Intellectual Property theft, Industrial
espionage, Employment disputes, Fraud investigations, Inappropriate use of the Internet and
email in the workplace, Forgeries associated matters, Bankruptcy investigations Issues and
difficulty with regulatory compliance. Despite the many successes chalked by the application
of digital forensics in crime investigations there are still challenges faced by digital
examiners that impede their work. Such challenges include; large volumes of data, Complex
processing, Legitimacy issues and new “anti-forensic” trends. Such challenges can be
overcome by the application of artificial intelligence.

3. What is Artificial Intelligence

It is the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally
requiring human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making,
and translation between languages. The term is frequently applied to the project of
developing systems endowed with the intellectual processes characteristic of humans, such as
the ability to reason, discover meaning, generalize, or learn from past experience. There are
four types of artificial intelligence, namely; Reactive Machines, Limited Memory, Theory of
Mind and Self-Awareness. There are several technologies that come together to make up an
Artificial Intelligence system and the three most important among these technologies are
Machine Learning (ML), Deep Learning, and Natural Language Processing (NLP). Artificial
Intelligence has presently been infused into our daily lives to an extent that we cannot survive
without its usage. Below is a list of eight examples of artificial intelligence that you’re likely
to come across on a daily basis. They are Maps and Navigation, Facial Detection and
Recognition, Text Editors or Autocorrect, Search and Recommendation Algorithms,
Chatbots, Digital Assistants, Social Media and E-Payments.

4. Brief History of AI

The records of artificial talent (AI) started out in antiquity, with myths, memories and rumors

of synthetic beings endowed with talent or cognizance by using master craftsmen. Intelligent
robots and artificial beings first appeared in the ancient Greek myths of Antiquity. Aristotle's
development of syllogism and its use of deductive reasoning was a key moment in mankind's
quest to understand its own intelligence. While the roots are long and deep, the history of
artificial intelligence as we think of it today spans less than a century.
The seeds of modern AI had been planted by classical philosophers who attempted to
describe the technique of human questioning as the mechanical manipulation of symbols.

The beginnings of present-day AI can be traced to classical philosophers' who tried to

describe human wondering as a symbolic system. But the subject of AI wasn't
formally based until 1956, at a convention at Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New
Hampshire, the place the term "artificial intelligence" was once coined.

5. Importance of the Application of Artificial Intelligence in Digital Forensics

Digital investigations, whether the crime is a cybercrime or crime that involves digital
appliances, require investigators to parse through massive troves of data in a short amount of
time. The complexity and amount of data in addition to time constraints reinforces the
importance of artificial intelligence and automation on digital forensics. Unless resilient
digital forensic systems are designed, it is evident that the size and number of computer-aided
crimes will only grow and reach a point of inflicting lasting collateral damage to the industry.
It is time to calibrate the impacts of AI and automation in creating performance-driven digital
forensic systems.

6. Below are areas of digital forensics where AI provides enormous help.

1. AI is used to facilitate the examination and analysis phases of digital forensics and as such,
it enables forensic experts to examine and analyze digital evidence across a wide variety of
computer crimes, including but not limited to malware, spyware, hacking, data theft, and
identity theft.

2. The use of IA in digital forensics allows human forensic experts to find answers to legal
significance questions in less time and cost. To an extent, it is arguable that IA can also be
utilized to limit future risks and challenges by thoroughly analyzing current and previous
digital evidence.

3. It helps companies detect criminal activity from the vast amounts of unstructured data they
have collected, such as from videos, images, emails, and text files.

4. Identifying specific types of patterns in large data is one of the crucial elements of digital
forensics. This may involve image pattern recognition where the software tries to identify
different parts of an image or a person. Similarly, there may be other kinds of pattern
recognition, such as detecting patterns in a text like email messages, or patterns in a sound
file. AI can be used to recognize such patterns in complex data in a more accurate manner.

5. Forensic investigation requires communication between forensic statisticians, lawyers,

criminal investigators, and others. Miscommunication between these parties can lead to
wrong decisions or misinterpretation of data leading to delayed or wrong justice. AI helps to
bridge this communication gap between different partners in this field.

6. Digital Forensic involves supporting the narrative and arguments with strong statistical
evidence. AI can build graphical structures that can support building scenarios and case
stories. It can also help build graphical model situations that can be used to prove or disprove
arguments, helping the law to make better judgments. AI provides mathematical and
computational tools that can help to build statistically relevant and significant evidence. All
this will reduce the errors and improve the understanding of the statistics behind a study.

7. Limitations of Artificial Intelligence in Digital Forensics

1. The ability to create a machine or system that can simulate human intelligence is no small
feat. It requires plenty of time and resources and can cost a huge deal of money. AI also
needs to operate on the latest hardware and software to stay updated and meet the latest
requirements, thus making it quite costly.

2. A big disadvantage of AI is that it cannot learn to think outside the box. AI is capable of
learning over time with pre-fed data and past experiences, but cannot be creative in its
approach. This may impede investigation and evidence examination.

3. Perhaps one of the biggest disadvantages of artificial intelligence in the digital forensics
space is that AI is slowly replacing a number of repetitive tasks with bots. The reduction in
the need for human interference has resulted in the death of many job opportunities.

4. Ethics and morality are important human features that can be difficult to incorporate into
an AI. The rapid progress of AI has raised a number of concerns that one day, AI will grow
uncontrollably, and eventually wipe out humanity.

5. The unavailability of technical staff with the experience and training necessary to
effectively deploy and operate AI solutions in forensic examinations is a major concern.

Conclusion
Digital forensics is an area that is becoming increasingly important in computing and often
requires the intelligent analysis of large amounts of complex data. It would therefore seem
that AI is an ideal approach to deal with many of the problems that currently exist in digital
forensics. Applying Artificial Intelligence to digital forensics can maximize the accuracy of
digital forensic investigations, enabling the resolution of more digital investigations.
References

https://slideplayer.com
https://www.eccouncil.org/what-is-digital-forensics/
https://www.guru99.com/digital-forensics.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Wikipedia
https://www.iotforall.com/8-helpful-everyday-examples-of-artificial-intelligence
https://www.britannica.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/Reasoning
AI & Cyber Forensics: How Does AI Contribute to Digital Forensics? - IT Supply Chain
AI in Forensic Investigation and Crime Detection (analyticsinsight.net)
Al Fahdi et al., 2016. The impact of automation and artificial intelligence on digital forensics.
https://www.news-medical.net/life-sciences/AI-in-Forensic-Science.aspx