Gmail Email Forensic Analysis Using a Tried & Tested Solution
Gmail Forensics as a field is a very niche and purpose-oriented area of digital forensics which deals with the forensic analysis of the data in a Gmail account. Millions of people all over the world use Gmail as their email clients making it one of the most popular email services. Such a large user base has a significant drawback, spam, and online fraud, which calls for the need for forensics in this field.
This article underlines all the information about this area and the professional tool required to carry out the investigation.
Overview of the Field
Gmail Forensics is a very specific domain in digital forensics that deals with providing all the digital forensic services solely for potential evidence that may be present on Gmail accounts.
The collection of information is the first step in an investigative process.
Gmail Forensics for the Information Obtained
When the information is obtained, relevant analysis is required to have it make sense and be in a usable form for further Gmail Email Forensic analysis.
Data present in a Gmail email can be accessed in two ways for Gmail Forensics. These are mentioned further in the article.
Method 1: Gmail Email Forensics through the Gmail Header
The data associated with a Gmail email is present in many places like the Gmail server, the network of the device, etc. You can access the information by something called an email header.
It is part of an email that contains various kinds of information like sender address, receiver address, attachment information, transport layer security information, etc. By accessing the data of an email header, you can perform a rudimentary form of Gmail Email Forensics.
You can do basic investigative analysis like finding out the name of the sender and the information about the attachments. However, this method is not suitable for forensic operations. It leaves out the investigation of other complex data that a normal user cannot understand. Hence this method is not thorough and can lead to altered and possibly wrong conclusions.
Accessing the Email Header Information
In the case of Gmail, the steps for Gmail Forensics are:
- Select the desired email, click on the options tab, and click the option that says “Show Original”.
- All the header information is present here. The user can copy all the content from this page and paste it into the tool that provides this service. Some of the top examples include MessageHeader by Google
For the in-depth analysis of the Gmail accounts, you need to take the help of a functionally superior and advanced software like the one mentioned below.
Method 2: A Professional Solution for Gmail Forensics Analysis
One of the top and highly rated tools like the Gmail Forensics Tool is a functionally superior and easy-to-use software. This makes the analysis of this type of data infinitely easier and faster. It is a market-leading software that has all the essential tools to carry out a thorough investigation.
Various advantages to using this tool are:
- Different Evidence Viewing Options
- Multiple Keyword-Search Options
- Relation Generator Using Analytics Functionality
- Detailed Filtering Options
- Various Export/Extract Formats
Short User Guide for the Tool
The tool is very intuitive and easy to use and is one of its main highlights. The very simple steps are:
- To start the analysis, open the tool and enter the user credentials where you can create a new case.
- On the evidence tab, you can add the relevant files required for the analysis. Select the email client as Gmail and continue with the process to complete the import of the data.
- You can see all the options like analyze and custodian-related information on the tab on the left-hand side
- After completing the Gmail Email Forensic analysis, you can export the findings in the form of a detailed report. You can choose the format of the export files in this window.
Also Read: Email Forensics – An Art of Extracting and Examining Email Evidence
Conclusion
This article contains information on the different procedures which are used to perform Gmail Forensic analysis and shows the importance of an automated and functionally superior tool to navigate the evidence and make it usable for the process. For this process, the tool required is also discussed in detail to underline the already fantastic reviews.