TY  - JOUR
T1  - A Model for Evaluating Digital Forensic Tools
AU - M. Dimpe, Precilla AU - P. Kogeda, Okuthe 
JO  - Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences
VL  - 14
IS  - 19
SP  - 7048
EP  - 7058
PY  - 2019
DA  - 2001/08/19
SN  - 1816-949x
DO  - jeasci.2019.7048.7058
UR  - https://makhillpublications.co/view-article.php?doi=jeasci.2019.7048.7058
KW  - Digital forensics
KW  -Bayesian networks
KW  -tools
KW  -cybercrime
KW  -digital forensic investigators
KW  -MySQL
KW  -evaluation
KW  -criminals
KW  -evidence
AB  - Digital Forensic Investigators (DFIs) rely on tools to assess, gather and analyze digital evidence.
They are used to unravel criminal acts and prove crime in a court of law. However, most of these tools are used
without being evaluated because tool evaluation is expensive and time consuming. In addition, most DFIs
assume that a tool would do exactly what the vendor claims it would do. If a tool is not evaluated, it remains
unknown whether the results it produces are reliable or not. Unreliable results may jeopardize the whole forensic
investigation process and in some cases lead to improper civil judgements resulting in criminals walking free
thereby being encouraged to commit the same crime again. This may also lead to time wasting, trial and error,
loss of money etc. Therefore, in this study, we designed and implemented a model for evaluating digital
forensics tools to help DFIs with evaluating the tools that they would want to use. We used data from the
Computer Forensic Tool Testing (CFTT) project which we aggregated and classified using Bayesian networks.
We implemented our model using Java programming language and MySQL database. We tested using the data
from the CFTT project in conjunction with the feedback provided by DFIs to recommend a suitable tool to use
for investigations based on the task a DFI wants to perform, the category of the tool and its cost. The model
attained a utility performance of 91.7%.
ER  -