In this video, we're going to be talking about handling data and dealing with informational overload.
So during your own investigations, you're probably going to end up with a whole lot of data, data
that you're going to use, data that you need to organize, data that you're not going to use.
So these are going to be some tips on how to organize.
It's stuff that you want to collect and kind of how to not get overwhelmed by it.
So things that were typically looking for in OWS investigation is contact information.
We want to know the scope of work, what is considered out of scope.
This is all going to be stuff for when you're being contracted for OWS an investigation or you're being
asked to perform a OWS investigation.
You want that contact information so you know well who to contact.
If there's a question or problem, or when you finish, you want to know what's in the scope of work,
what they expect you to do, what is considered out of scope, things like, well, can I, can I send
a pastor reset request to say, Facebook or social media to find out if they have an account there?
Are there any special considerations you need to have things like, well, there always needs to be
a VPN, I have to do this on a non personal computer, etc..
Is there a timeline that you need to get this done by?
IS are there special data retention requests, things like Do the files need to be encrypted?
Do you need to shred the files after after the fact, etc. and informational get the information in
writing in either an email or a letter, something where you could refer back to if there's a question,
if there's a problem or whatnot.
You want that information.
All of this in writing.
It protects both you and the client.
So data collection during the investigation, you're likely again to collect a large amount of data.
This data can include things like names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, social media
posts, photos, text stems, passwords, etc..
And again, getting all this information can be really overwhelming.
You can get over room pretty easily and that's pretty common.
So.
What you want to do is things the uncertainty of what you keep and don't want to keep.
Again, that can be really stressful.
So first, first and foremost, I know it's easy to say, but try to keep calm.
Try to collect information that's within the scope of work.
Anything and everything may fall into the scope of stuff that you're collecting.
So.
So for me personally, I tend to collect everything initially unless I know it's out of scope and then
we can kind of break it up from there.
Once that information is broken down into sections, we can break down things like phone numbers, names,
places, dates, etc..
So and again, once I have that initial data, I'll take a look at it again, see if it's in scope or
out of scope.
And if the job is to, say, identify a Twitter user, does any of the information have a name?
If it has a name, I'll look at their friends.
Do their friends give a location or a name or other information that I'm interested in, things like
that.
And we'll be kind of walking through this again to later in the course.
So additional considerations.
Keep your investigations and data isolated to your virtual machine.
So if you need to keep your up, your operation secure, consider encrypting your data in your VM,
things like keepass for your passwords.
And there's very scrip for encrypting the data, things like that.
Depending on your scope of work, you may be working in a no contact investigation.
In other words, don't you are not allowed to directly contact your target or your target's friends,
family, etc. You want to pay special attention to this?
Again, you don't want to break your contract and also you don't want to.
Typically those things are there for well, you don't want to spook the target or whatnot unless you're
expressly allowed.
Do not share specific information about your investigation with anyone outside of the investigation
group before, during or after the event.
Again, you want to make sure when you're dealing with those investigation for someone that you want
to find out what you're allowed and not allowed to do.
So these are some considerations with handling data.
Hopefully it helped.
If you have questions or problems, let me know and I'll do my best to address it.
Thank you for watching.
I'll see you next video.