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Security Operations · Foundational

Evidence Integrity

Assurance that evidence has not been altered since collection, typically demonstrated by cryptographic hashes.

Definition

Investigators hash evidence at acquisition and verify the hash at each later step. Matching hashes prove the copy is identical to the original. SHA-256 is preferred over MD5 and SHA-1 due to collision weaknesses, though MD5 is still commonly recorded alongside.

Example

Recording the SHA-256 of a disk image at acquisition and verifying it before analysis.

Exam tip

Hashing proves integrity; chain of custody proves handling.

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