When you think about forensic evidence, you probably imagine detectives looking for droplets of blood, traces of fingerprints or imprints of shoes. All of these physical clues lead law enforcement into solving a crime, but did you know that computers leave similar clues? As more and more criminals turn to the computer, businesses and governments need the proper tools and training to catch the offenders.

What exactly is computer forensics? Why should we care? How exactly do you obtain evidence from a computer? People from Guidance Software, makers of the famous EnCase forensic software, helped us answer those important questions.

What Is Computer Forensics?

Computer forensics deals with any and all evidence that is stored on a computer. This usually means the data on the hard-drive, but can also include USB pen drives, floppies and CDs/DVDs. What many people don't realize is that almost everything you do on your computer, from surfing the Web to using AOL Instant Messenger, leaves a trail. With the proper tools and training, an investigator can follow this trail back to the criminal.

Some of the more common situations where you might see computer evidence are child pornography crimes, electronic fraud, corporate fraud and of course terrorism. Proper recovery of evidence can save a lot of money or can save a lot of lives.

In many cases, criminals think that they can permanently delete information from their computers by hitting Delete on the keyboard. EnCase is a popular software tool that corporations and governments alike have used with great success in retrieving these deleted files, much to the surprise the criminal.