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Recovering wiped hard drive data as evidence of cybercrime

By Jean Lewis, Tech writer, Laptopical.com

Crime comes in many different ways and shapes, even more so now that the internet is
reaching the pinnacle of its popularity. And like any other enterprise, criminals often require
keeping and sharing different forms of data between each other. From illegal images to illegally
obtained credentials; there are many types of data used by criminals for the day to day running
of their operations. However, keeping that data could backfire as it could be used as evidence if
ceased by the authorities. This is why criminals often attempt at wiping their data when they
know they are on their way to get caught; thinking all that data will be gone and irretrievable.

How does a hard drive work?

Luckily for us; just because a hard drive is wiped does not mean that the data is gone for good.
This is certainly the case for traditional hard drives where the data gets stored onto a magnetic
platter. This platter is comprised of billions of very small different sectors which can be either
magnetized or demagnetized. If an area is magnetized it will register as a 1, whilst a
demagnetized area will store a 0. This effectively gives binary information for the hard drive’s
electronic circuits which is interpreted as data by our operating system. Once that information is
stored on the platter, it can remain there until overwritten by another file.

Ways people delete data

Deleting the files using the normal ‘delete’ command whilst using the operating system is a
basic method used by people thinking that the data will be unreachable as it does not show as
present to the operating system any longer. However this method only removes the shortcut to
the data until that data gets overwritten.

Formatting is a more thorough way to delete the data but the same happens as mentioned
above, it deletes the path to the data but the data will remain present on the magnetic platter.

40 Cyber Warnings E-Magazine – August 2015 Edition
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