Identifying bugs in digital forensic tools

Abstract

Bugs can be found in all code and the consequences are usually managed through up-grade releases, patches, and restarting operating systems and applications. However, in mission critical systems complete fall over systems are built to assure service continuity. In our research we asked the question, what are the professional risks of bugs in digital forensic tools? Our investigation reviewed three high use professional proprietary digital forensic tools, one in which we identified six bugs and evaluated these bug in terms of potential impacts on an investigator\u27s work. The findings show that yes major brand name digital forensic tools have software bugs and there is room for improvement. These bugs had potential to frustrate an investigator, to cost time, to lose evidence and to require compensatory strategies. Such software bugs also have the potential for malicious exploitation and anti-forensic use