Introduction to Digital Forensics:
Using BitCurator to Identify Personally Identifiable Information (PII)  

By James Dey, Micah Gottlieb, Grace Muñoz


Audience: Information professionals & students
Skill Level: Beginner

Module Overview

The BitCurator Environment is an open-source suite of digital forensics and data analysis tools to help collecting institutions process born-digital materials. Many libraries and archives use BitCurator to prepare digital material for long-term access and preservation. This module will provide an introduction to digital forensics equipment, with a focus on BitCurator and its ability to identify personally identifiable information (PII). This video details the 4-part structure of this module and its learning objectives.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

  • Learn how to install BitCurator through a VirtualBox on your computer.
  • Learn how to mount a disk image in the BitCurator Environment.
  • Determine how to locate personally identifiable information (PII) within a disk image using BulkExtractor.
  • Develop a basic understanding of digital forensics equipment.

Accessibility

We are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of technology or ability. Each of these videos features a description of what is discussed, and each has closed captioning available. We have also tested this website for compliance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 standards using webaccessibility.com. To learn more, please read the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Introduction to Web Accessibility. For any additional concerns, feel free to let us know in our post-module survey.

Time

Each part runs between 4-10 minutes, approximately 45-60 minutes total

Technology 

•Computer (Mac or PC)
•Virtual Box Software
•USB Flash Drive
•Sample Drive Image

Materials 

Please see Sources and Additional Resources to learn more about BitCurator Environment.

Part I: Setting up a Virtual Machine
If your computer runs on macOS, please watch the first video. If using Windows, please watch the second video.
macOS

This video walks users through the steps required to set up VirtualBox, an open-source virtualization software designed to run Linux on a macOS computer. VirtualBox allows users to access BitCurator Environment, a Ubuntu-derived Linux operation system.

Requires: BitCurator releases and Virtual Box

Windows

This video walks viewers through the steps required to set up VirtualBox, an open-source virtualization software designed to run Linux on a Windows computer. VirtualBox allows viewers to access BitCurator Environment, a Ubuntu-derived Linux operation system.

Requires: BitCurator releases and Virtual Box

Let's try it! 
Can you set up a virtual machine on your own?

Part II: Creating a Disk Image Using Guymager

Accessing data on a storage device normally involves mounting a volume and then copying or opening files by interacting with the file system. This video demonstrates how this process works in BitCurator by booting from an ISO disk image file using Guymager.

Requires: USB flash drive

Let's try it!
 Do you know how to create a disk image from your personal hard drive?

Part III: Using BulkExtractor Viewer to Extract File Information

After viewing this video, viewers will be able to understand why and how BulkExtractor is used.

Requires: disk image created from Part II or sample disk image

Let's try it!
What types of personally identifiable information did you find on your disk image? 

Part IV: Processing Data & Generating & Analyzing Reports with BitCurator

In this video, viewers are guided through the process of looking at files on the drive, analyzing graphs, and looking at files that were deleted.

Requires: data generated from Parts I-III

Let's try it!
Are there any ethical implications we should consider when dealing with personally identifiable information?

Suggestions or Comments?

Please let us know what you thought of our module by taking the 5-minute survey below.

TAKE SURVEY

Created for the UCLA Department of Information Studies course IS 241: Digital Preservation, Winter 2021
Credits: BitCurator Consortium, Educopia, and Savannah Lake, UCLA MLIS 2020

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