In today’s digital world, cyber crime has become one of the top-most criminal activities that targets individuals, enterprises, and even the government. Whether it is phishing attacks, identity theft, or many more, cyber crime has many devastating consequences. Cyber crime basically refers to the crime that involves computers or the internet.​

How to Investigate a Cyber Crime Case?

Investigating a crime is a different kind of work that requires a lot of effort. To investigate, one requires technical skills and special tools. Here is a detailed guide on how to investigate a cyber crime case:​

1. Receiving a Complaint or Report of Crime

The first step is basically when someone reports or complains of a crime. This can involve:

• A person lost money online

• A hacked company

• A cyber crime enterprise or company that notices strange or unusual behaviour.

After this, cyber experts will listen to the complaint and will ask some questions, like

• What kind of crime happened?

• When did the crime happen?

• How did it happen?

• What data was affected, and much more?

After getting the required information, the cyber experts can now know how serious the case was and what steps have to be considered after this.​

2. Maintaining the Evidence

Digital evidence disappears very quickly. However, files can be changed, deleted, or vanished. Therefore, the investigators should work quickly and by maintaining or preserving the evidence or information. This includes:

• Making a copy of the computer data, which is called Forensic data.

• Saving the logs from the software

• Taking screenshots of files for further investigation

• Writing down every single thing they did, which is called maintaining a chain of custody.

Maintaining the digital evidence is very necessary.

​3. Analyze the Attack

After saving the digital data, the next step is to analyze how the attack happened. For this, the cyber experts require:

• Emails with malicious attachments

• IP addresses that accessed the network

• Viruses are loaded on the system

• Logs showing when someone logged into the system

Experts prefer Cybersics cyber forensic services to help in analyzing what the attacker did and when they did.​

4. Find the Criminal

This step is the hardest part, as it is very difficult to find out who committed the crime, as cyber criminals can hide their identities using:

• Fake IP Addresses

• Anonymous email accounts

• Hacked devices or computers of other people

But there are chances that the investigator may find some clues, like:

• By tracing cryptocurrency payments

• Search the dark web for the data that was stolen

• By checking social media behaviour

• By looking at the email headers for the hidden IPs

5. Follow the Law

While collecting the data or evidence, the investigator must follow the law and all the instructions. These instructions may include:

• Taking permission before the investigator searches for someone’s computer or phone.

• Investigation should be done while respecting privacy laws, especially the sensitive data.

• Work with lawyers to ensure that the case is strong enough.

6. Legal Action

If a criminal is identified and the necessary evidence is collected, then the next step is to arrest the criminal. After arresting the criminal, their devices are searched for more evidence, and they are questioned related to the crime. Then, the lawyers prepare the case for the court.​

7. After the Case Procedures

After the case is finished, the investigators and the victims of the crime take the following precautions to prevent future digital attacks:

• Educate the staff about cybersecurity

• Fixing the security weakness that allowed the criminal to attack

• Updating software and the systems

• Sharing information with other enterprises or organizations and discussing cybersecurity and how to investigate a cyber crime case if it happens to them.

Conclusion

It takes time, effort, and skills to investigate a cyber crime case. In this article, we learnt everything starting from receiving a complaint to analyzing the attack, finding the criminal, and taking legal action against the crime. As technology is growing, cyber crime is growing too, which is why it is important for everyone to stay alert and learn about what cybercrime is and how to investigate a cyber crime case.