Webmail Forensics – Ultimate Solution for Cloud Based Emails Investigation
In this modern world, emails are widely used by both small-scale and large-scale organizations to communicate with each other. At the same time, email has become a primary weapon used by criminals to do digital crimes.
As a result, we are making you aware with this article where we will discuss webmail investigation, the procedure to analyze the bulk emails and how to recover and analyze the deleted emails. Before proceeding further, let us learn what is the difference between webmail and desktop-based email clients.
Distinguish between Webmail and Desktop-Based Email Clients
The difference between web-mail and desktop-based email can confuse people. As we know both web-mail and desktop-based email applications use the Internet for communication then what may be confusing is how they work differently?
When you send or receive the email using a desktop email client, the data will be saved in the storage of your system. For E.g. : Outlook Desktop Client.
If you use webmail services to communicate through emails, the data will be saved in the cloud server e.g.: Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc. Whenever users open the email service, data will sync from the server via the internet.
Second point of distinction is the offline access. While using a desktop client, you can access the data offline as it is stored on your own device. On the other hand, all the webmail data is stored on the cloud and hence cannot be accessed while you are offline.
Most people prefer to use webmail services over desktop services. This is because webmail services can be used anywhere.
Finding the Evidence in Webmail Forensics
In webmail investigation scenarios, investigators need to analyze the email data that is being saved in the cloud platform. It needs the backup of data for an investigation that takes too much time in analyzing and downloading all the files from the cloud. For taking the backup, you need an entirely separate backup utility which can be challenging.
As a result, to help the forensic investigation officer with a prompt solution, it is best suggested to avail MailXaminer, an automated email forensics analysis tool. For webmail forensics, this tool enables synchronization of all the email data directly from the account into the software by providing the username and password of the account. There is no need to download the emails for analysis. The software is capable of easily syncing all the email data along with the attachments for forensics examination.
For webmail investigation, it also provides unbeatable features and advanced functionalities thereby making the investigation process simple.
Webmail Forensics & Analysis Using the Professional Software
Using this tool, the different challenges associated while carrying out the investigation process can be instantly dealt with, all because of its versatile features.
Following are the steps to configure the webmail account for webmail investigation using the software:
- Download and run the tool in your system.
- Click on the Add Evidence button.
- After that, select the desired email client.
- Now, fill in the login details|(Username and Password) in the dialogue box and click “Add”.
- Using the “Date Filter” option, it helps to sync the data within a date range.
- Then the software will sync all the data files of the account that was added for analysis.
- This software will automatically check and sync the newly arrived emails once in 24 hours.
- To save the data locally, click on the “Export” button as it provides multiple file-formats to export required data.
Here are Some Additional Useful Features This Tool
- Advanced Document Support
- Multiple email preview formats
- Advance link analysis
- Analyzes Office 365 mailboxes
- Scan OCR format documents
- Support advanced analysis of Skype chat database
- Capable to decrypt SMIME and OpenPGP encryption
Also Read: Apple Mail Forensics — Email Artifacts
Conclusion
The above-mentioned method and analysis process is meant for finding the evidence of web-based/cloud-based emails with the help of a third-party tool. However, for webmail investigation, it is recommended that the investigating officers rely on trustworthy automated software. The tool in this article is one of the widely-used and ultra-quick utilities for webmail forensics email investigation.