Investigation Project Plan

Guidelines for Investigation
Project Plan
Your report must be
organized and written in a way that is easy to follow. Include all requirements
that are identified in the Project 1 steps as well as here in the guidelines.
Each section of the
report should be clearly identified. Use the terms figure and table to refer to
all images and graphics. Take time to check your sentence structure, expression
of ideas, and spelling. Your writing must flow and make sense.
Tables, screenshots,
graphs, and artifact images contained in your report should be individually
labeled and numbered using APA format (e.g., Table 1 Expense Budget, Figure 1
Screenshot of Washer ATM Image). Check library for the proper APA
formatting.
Your instructor may
require additional details and different formatting approaches. Rely on your
instructor’s guidance and feedback to produce the highest level of deliverables
to meet or exceed performance standards for Project 1 .
Consider
the following sections as the minimum starting point. Be sure to click each tab
for more information.
Title Page
Table of Contents
Purpose
Meetings and Agendas
Required Forms
Checklist of Forensic Equipment
and Software
Investigative Process
Inverview Forms with Questions
Investigation Timeline
Investigative Budget
Conclusions
References
Appendices
Include the title, your name, course name, and
date.
back to tab

Project 1: Investigation
Considerations
Step 4: Prepare and Submit Completed Investigation Project Plan
For your final
assignment, you will combine the results of the previous three steps into a
single planning document—an Investigation Project Plan—with a title page, a
table of contents, and a distinct section for each of the three steps. The plan
should include:
1.
Forms documenting key people, meeting
agenda, key activities and reporting, key words, investigation timeline
narrative, visual graphic timeline chart, authorization confirmation (e.g.,
ownership, jurisdiction), and related investigations. Designation of the legal
forms required for criminal investigations should also be included. (Step 1)
2.
Resource checklist for equipment, human
resources and labor expenses (Step 2)
3.
Management plan (Step 3)
4.
Search and seizure form(s)
5.
Chain of custody form
The organization and
details of your plan is important. Be sure to refer to the Guidelines for Project 1
Investigation Project Plan to meet the minimum standards needed
for this project.
All sources of
information must be appropriately referenced. Submit your completed
Investigation Project Plan to your supervisor (instructor) for evaluation upon
completion.
Start here:
A digital forensic investigation process
can involve many steps and procedures. The objective is to obtain unbiased
information in a verifiable manner using accepted forensic practices. In this
project, you will perform some of the steps necessary for setting up an
investigation. These steps include designing interview questions that establish
the needs of the case and provide focus for your investigative efforts. You
will also determine what resources may be needed to conduct the investigation.
Once you have this information, you will be able to develop an investigation
plan that properly sequences activities and processes, allowing you to develop
time estimates and contingency plans should you encounter challenges in the
investigation.
This situation involves two computers and a thumb drive.
After clear authorization to proceed has been obtained, one of the first
investigative decision points is whether to process the items of evidence
individually or together. Processing computers individually makes sense when
they are not likely tied to the same case. However, if the computers are linked
to the same case, there can be advantages in processing them together.
There are four steps in this project. In Step 1, you will
develop interview protocols and identify documentation needs for a forensic
investigation. In Step 2, you will identify tools and software needed for the
investigation. In Step 3, you will develop a plan for conducting the
investigation, and in Step 4, you will consolidate your efforts in the form of
a single document to be submitted to your supervisor (i.e., your instructor).
The final assignment in this project is a planning document with a title page,
table of contents, and distinct section for each of the three steps in the project.
Consult the relevant sections of Guidelines for
Project 1 Investigation Project Plan in every step.
In Step 1, get started on the plan by creating an
interview form to record questions, key words, and authorization information,
and to complete the legal forms needed in this case. However, before you can do
that, you need to review your training in criminal investigations.
Step 1: Create and Gather Forms
Your tasks in Step 1 are
to create interview forms to record questions, key words, and authorization
information, and to designate other legal forms that will be needed in this
case. It is important for you to describe the importance of each form that you
create in the body of your final Project Plan assignment and include in-text
reference citations for all of your content. The forms that you complete as
part of Step 1 will be included in your Investigation Project Plan, the final
assignment for this project.
As part of the
investigation into two computers and a thumb drive, it’s important to do the
necessary preliminary work. In criminal investigations,
there are laws governing chain of custody, search warrants, subpoenas, jurisdiction, and
the plain view doctrine.
It’s important to be familiar with these topics. Review forensic laws and regulations that
relate to cybercrime, as well as rules of digital forensics in
preparation for your digital forensic investigation.
The next thing to do is
to read the police report and perform a quick inventory of devices that are
thought to contain evidence of the
crime. You have set up a meeting with the lead detectives and the prosecutor
handling the case.
You have received an
official request for assistance that provides you with authority to
conduct the investigation. You realize it will be impossible to produce a detailed investigation project plan prior
to your meeting with the detectives and the prosecutor. First, you need to
develop a series of questions to establish the key people and activities. These
questions should address potential criminal activity, timelines, and people who
need to be investigated.
It is also important to
determine whether different aspects of the case are being pursued by other
investigators and to include those investigators on your contact list. In
addition, some situations may involve organizations or individuals who need to
adhere to various types of industry compliance.
This situation may require you to follow special procedures.
Step 2: List Required Forensic
Equipment, Software, and Labor Expenses
In Step 1, you developed
forms and templates to collect the legal, criminal, and technical information
that lays the groundwork for your investigation. In this step, you will
consider the types of equipment and human resources needed to conduct the investigation
and create a budget table that includes expenses for software licenses,
computers, storage devices, number of digital forensics examiners, digital
forensics examiners’ labor hours, examiner hourly pay rate, including time
spent for each phase of the investigation process in gathering evidence
analysis, reporting, presentation preparation and court appearance(s).
It is important
to total overall costs of all equipment and expenses in your budget table.
By making these preparations, you are establishing forensic readiness.
Required resources can include people; tools and technologies such as RAID storage, deployment kits,
or imaging programs;
and budget and timeline information.
Develop a checklist. It
will be included in the final Investigation Project Plan.
In the next step, you
will begin to prepare a plan for managing a digital forensic investigation.
Step 3: Plan Your Investigation
In the prior step, you
determined what resources would be necessary for your investigation. In this
step, you will develop a plan for managing the investigation. The requirements
for writing case reports reflect
the step-by-step rigidity of the criminal investigation process itself. Being
able to articulate time, task, money, and personnel requirements is essential.
Project management is
a skill set that is not often linked to digital forensics and criminal
investigations. That is unfortunate because effective project management can
have a dramatic impact on the success and accuracy of an investigation.
Identifying the tasks that need to be performed, their sequence, and their
duration are important considerations, especially in the face of “wild
cards” such as delays in obtaining correct search warrants and subpoenas.
It is also important to have a clear understanding of the goals for the
investigation as you will likely be called upon to present conclusions and
opinions of your findings.
Your project plan should
include a properly sequenced narrative timeline and a separately labeled and sequenced
Visual Graphic Timeline chart that reflects the time intervals between each
phase of the evidence acquisition and
investigation processes (e.g., 30 hours gathering evidence
spread across five business days, 60 hours of analysis over 10 business days,
90 days for reporting and court preparation, etc.) including detailed time
estimates, and contingency plans. Your plan will serve many purposes, including
the assignment of a project budget. As you create your plan, be sure to include
in your meeting agenda communications and reporting: who should be involved,
how the activities should be carried out, how often, and under what
circumstances (i.e., modality, frequency).
Once you have developed
your project management plan, move on to the next step, where you will submit
your final assignment.

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