Why Python is useful for Forensics ?
The reasons behind using Python for Forensics.
Today, Python is very popular among programmers. Everyone uses python for many tasks like building web applications, Graphical User Interface based applications, Software Development applications, Network Programming, Game development etc. Also, We can use the Python programming language for Forensic Data Analysis and Various Forensics scenarios.
Below features are some reasons to use python for forensics tasks.
- Easy to use.
- It's an interpreted programming language.
- Pre-processing automation
- Open source.
Easy to use:
Python is the preferred programming language for forensics tasks due to its ease of use. Especially, python hasn't complex syntax. It's more like the English Language and mostly, scripts written in python can easily understand. Also, python has well-detailed documentation. It is much more helpful for programmers when writing python scripts. Python doesn't require any specific code editor. Installing additional softwares or plugins cost more price and time. But in forensics task, sometimes, we haven't more time. as an example, we can get a situation like a data breach. If we spend more time installing additional softwares or spend more time writing our program using complex programming languages like C++, maybe more valuable data will transfer to a rouge company or a competitor company and we will find what data are modified after it happened. It's not good and we need to respond to those situations immediately.
Python is an interpreted programming language:
Programming languages can be divided into two categories. Complied languages and Interpreted languages. Python is an interpreted programming language. Python doesn't compile the code into machine language. So, It is not as fast as compiled languages at run time but in forensics, we have to do modifications to our code specially, for ensure the validity. When we do modifications to our code, we can quickly run and view the results because python doesn't compile entire code.
Pre-processing automation:
Python has the capability of pre-processing automation. In forensics, sometimes, we find ourselves repeating the same task for each evidence item, It may be better to develop a system that automates those steps. For a example, ManTech's Analysis and Triage System. (github.com/mantarayforensics) According to their documentation, MantaRay is designed to automate the processing of forensics images, directories and individual files and they use python for their automation system.
Open source:
Python is an open source language and supports many third party libraries. Those libraries and modules can be easily added to our scripts and we can easily use them when we wanted them. Also, they saves our time and preventing us from writing many lines to our scripts. Its a great thing for Forensics examiners. And, we can create our own libraries for specific task.
Its also need to mention that python's automatic memory management is also very useful for forensics task.
So, I think I cover all the key points, and I hope you enjoy this. Thank you for reading.
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