👉 Overview
👀 What ?
Image Acquisition & Mount refers to the process of obtaining and mounting a digital image of a computer's storage media, often for the purposes of digital forensics or data recovery.
🧐 Why ?
The importance of Image Acquisition & Mount lies in its role in preserving the integrity of the data. By creating a bit-by-bit copy of the original storage media, investigators can work with the copy, leaving the original data untouched. This is crucial in situations where the data might be evidentiary in nature, or where maintaining the original state of the data is of paramount importance.
⛏️ How ?
Typically, Image Acquisition is performed using specialized software that can create a bit-by-bit copy of the original storage media. The copied image is then 'mounted' as a virtual drive, allowing the user to navigate and interact with the copied data as if it were the original. It's important to note that any changes made to the mounted image do not affect the original data.
⏳ When ?
The practice of Image Acquisition & Mount has been in use since the early days of digital forensics, becoming an industry standard by the late 1990s.
⚙️ Technical Explanations
Image Acquisition is a crucial process in digital forensics and data recovery. It refers to the procedure of copying raw data from a storage device, such as a hard drive, onto a file. This data includes visible files and directories, deleted data, slack space, and all non-visible data. The core idea is to create a precise bit-by-bit replica of the original storage device. This means every bit of data, regardless of its state or visibility on the original device, is copied into the image file.
This process is critical in preserving the integrity of the data, especially in situations where the data may serve as evidence or where it's important to keep the original data unaltered. By working with a copy, investigators or data recovery professionals can ensure the original data remains untouched.
The second part of the process is 'Mounting'. This involves creating a virtual file system that replicates the structure of the original data, permitting the user to navigate and interact with the data as if they were working with the original device. The mounted image behaves much like a physical drive to the user, but it's significant to remember that any changes made on this mounted image do not affect the original data.
This entire process, while technical, is typically carried out using specialized software which handles the complexities, making the process largely invisible to the user. The practice of Image Acquisition & Mounting has been an industry standard since the late 1990s, and continues to be a fundamental aspect of digital forensics and data recovery.
For instance, let's consider a scenario where a digital forensic investigator needs to acquire and mount an image from a suspect's hard drive for evidence.
- Acquisition: The investigator would start by connecting the hard drive to a write-blocker. A write-blocker is a device that allows read-only access to data on a hard drive preventing any modifications. This is important to maintain the integrity of the evidence.
- They would then use a specialized software such as FTK Imager. This software is widely used in digital forensics for creating an exact bit-by-bit copy of the hard drive. The command below initiates the imaging process:
FTK_Imager.exe -o -e01 -d /dev/sdb1 -o /path/to/output-file.E01
In this command, -e01 indicates the output format for the image file, -d /dev/sdb1 specifies the source drive (hard drive), and /path/to/output-file.E01 is the destination path for the image file.
- Mounting: Once the image is obtained, the investigator needs to mount it. Again, they can use FTK Imager to mount the image and explore the file system. The mounted image will behave like a physical drive, but any changes made will not affect the original data.
To mount the image, they would use the following command:
FTK_Imager.exe -mount -e01 /path/to/output-file.E01
Where -mount is the command to mount the image, -e01 indicates the format of the image file and /path/to/output-file.E01 is the path to the image file.
- After these steps, the investigator can now explore the file system, analyze the data, recover deleted files, and conduct further investigations without worrying about altering the original evidence.