The Digital Forensics Playbook: A Practical Guide for Modern Investigators

Description

The Digital Forensics Playbook cuts through the noise and gives you what most cybersecurity books never do—a clear, actionable, end-to-end blueprint for investigating real digital incidents.

This isn’t theory dumped into chapters. It’s a field-tested playbook designed for students, analysts, investigators, and security professionals who need to understand exactly how to collect, preserve, analyze, and present digital evidence without making rookie mistakes.

Inside, you’ll learn how modern investigators tackle incidents across:

• Computer forensics — evidence acquisition, disk imaging, deleted data recovery
• Network forensics — traffic reconstruction, intrusion analysis, log correlation
• Email forensics — header tracing, phishing investigation, message reconstruction
• Mobile forensics — data extraction, app artifacts, communication trails
• Web attack forensics — SQLi, privilege escalation, and application-level evidence
• Wireless forensics — Wi-Fi attack detection, monitoring, frame capture
• Legal frameworks — chain of custody, reporting, admissibility, expert testimony

Each chapter focuses on what matters in real investigations: identifying traces attackers leave behind, validating evidence so it stands in court, and connecting technical findings to the bigger narrative of who did what, when, and how.

Whether you want to break into digital forensics, sharpen your incident-response skills, or gain a competitive edge in cybersecurity, this playbook gives you the clarity, structure, and confidence needed to investigate modern digital crime scenes with precision.

No fluff. No filler. Just a practical guide for people who want to get the job done right.

Why This Playbook is Different:

• Action-Oriented Framework: Structured around the phases of a real investigation: Assess, Acquire, Analyze, Report.
• Tool-Agnostic Strategies: Focuses on the core principles and processes that apply whether you’re using EnCase, FTK, Autopsy, or other utilities.
• Real-World Scenarios: Learn the “why” behind the “what” with practical insights into how cybercriminals operate and how to counter them.
• Legal & Procedural Compliance: Built on a foundation of forensic soundness, ensuring your evidence will stand up in legal proceedings.