Industry Terms and Definitions
Acquisition:
The process of collecting digital data for the purposes of examining itApplication: A specific software program such as Microsoft Word or Outlook and as it related to a mobile device, a software program like Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter.
Digital Forensics: Investigation and analysis techniques to determine legal evidence. Some instances where digital forensics could be used include theft of trade secrets, theft of or destruction of intellectual property, fraud, human resource, illicit relationship and allegations as well as civil investigations. Digital forensic specialists use many methods to capture digital data from a mobile device, and recover deleted, hidden, or damaged data.
Data Extraction: The process of parsing data from files or applications to uncover their metadata and contents
Deleted files: Some data, when deleted from a mobile device, may still remain intact. Special computer applications and devices can be used to extract deleted data from these files
Discovery: The process of identifying, collecting and securing information that is potentially relevant to the case and producing so that it can be utilized as evidence.
Electronic discovery or EDiscovery: The process of identifying, preserving, collection, preparing, and producing electronically stored information in a legal or investigative process
ESI: Electronically stored information
Forensics: The handling of ESI including collection, examination and analysis, in a manner that ensures its authenticity, so as to provide for its admission as evidence in a court of law
Search. The process of examining digital data after collection for relevantdata.
Unallocated space: Space on storage media not used by the active filesystem to store files and/or folders. Since this space is not allocated to a file or folder it can contain data that previously existed at that portion of the storage media.