Case study research as a method for digital forensic evidence examinations

Abstract

At the heart of any forensic science discipline, there is the need to ensure that the method applied in the discipline is based on a valid scienti c method. The aim of any forensic examination is to make veri able and consistent inferences about phenomena with high certainty. The highest state of inference is determining causality. In science, two methods that can be applied in digital forensic examinations are experimentation and case studies. Experimentation is a well-tested scienti c method used for a whole range of scienti c studies, but there are situations where it is not always possible to carry out experiments. In these cases, the case study method o ers a suitable alternative approach to examining phenomena. Though case study research is very popular in the social sciences and not widely used in the natural sciences. it is accepted as a valid method and applying this method in examining digital occurrences may produce insightful results. This research work examines the suitability of case study research as a scienti c foundation for digital forensics. The research aims to show that case study method provides a scienti c foundation for digital forensics and a suitable adapted method of case study research would be applicable in examining digital evidence.