Chain of Custody Management in ForensicVM

Recording and maintaining a chain of custody in digital forensics is paramount to ensuring the integrity and veracity of digital evidence. When it comes to making comments or annotations about the custody of particular items, it is essential to have a robust system in place that captures these comments accurately and provides mechanisms for their retrieval. The following elaborates on the importance of such a system:

Transparency and Accountability

By having a system that records all chain of custody comments, it ensures transparency in the process. If there are any questions about how evidence was handled, one can refer back to the comments made at any given point in time. This keeps all stakeholders accountable.

Legal Compliance

For any digital forensic evidence to be admissible in court, the chain of custody must be clearly documented. A system that saves comments regarding custody and allows for their retrieval ensures that this requirement is met.

Collaboration and Consistency

Multiple investigators may handle a piece of evidence. By having a centralized system for comments, it ensures that all investigators have access to the same information, promoting consistency in the process.

Error Detection

Within ForensicVM, investigators have the capability to take snapshots and add comments at various stages of their analysis. If any errors are made regarding the custody of evidence or during the investigation, these snapshots provide a safe point to which investigators can roll back. This ensures that mistakes can be swiftly corrected without affecting the integrity of the ongoing analysis. Furthermore, the ability to review comments alongside these snapshots can assist investigators in pinpointing exactly where the mistake occurred, providing valuable insights for learning and improvement in future investigations.

Chain of Custody: Document, Save, and Download as DOCX

Save a comment

Open the chain of custody web modal popup by clicking on the designated button and enter your comment in the textbox provided. Once done, click the button to submit your comment to the database.

Download chain of custody docx

To download the chain of custody report, click on the “Download” button. This action will trigger a download on your browser.

Chain of custody document format

Review the downloaded chain of custody report. The report will display details such as the user, date, action, parameters of the action, UUID of the forensicVM, and the IP address of the user.

Fig. 235 Review the chain of custody report