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Email Forensics 4 minute read

Approaches to Filter Emails for Forensic Investigation

Updated on May 27th, 2022
Abhinav Sethi
Written By
Abhinav Sethi
Kuljeet Singh
Approved By
Kuljeet Singh

When you collect mailboxes for eDiscovery or digital forensic investigations, you need to search and filter their contents and other details. Email filtering helps you save considerable time and costs. In addition, it also helps in overcoming privacy issues that stop you from collecting certain emails for forensic investigation. There are two methods to filter emails during email forensic investigation – Collecting First, Filtering Later, and Filtering First, Collecting Later.

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Let’s take a closer look at both methods, along with their advantages and disadvantages.

Contents

  • Method 1: Collecting First, Filtering Later
  • Method 2: Filtering First, Collecting Later 

Method 1: Collecting First, Filtering Later

First of all, you need to collect all the mailboxes. After collecting these mailboxes, import them into an eDiscovery or email forensic tool, such as Stellar Email Forensic. The software comes with a 60-day trial period. The entire software’s features are available in the trial version itself. With an easy-to-use manual available on the website, you can search and filter the relevant emails in a short time and perform subsequent steps, such as processing, reviewing, and generating reports.

Advantages:

The following are some advantages of this method:

  • Sometimes, the requirements and scope of a case change after you start an investigation. When this happens, you may need to collect additional emails from the mailboxes. If you already have access to entire mailboxes, you can easily perform new or revised searches and collect additional emails.
  • When you filter emails with comprehensive email forensic tools, such as Stellar Email Forensic, you can easily perform advanced searches with functions, like Boolean Search or Regular Expression Search. Apart from this, you can also filter attachments based on file types. This way, you can quickly find the relevant data with great accuracy.

Disadvantages:

The following are some disadvantages of this method:

  • Collecting entire mailboxes can be cumbersome and time-consuming. If there are several mailboxes, you may end up spending hours collecting all of them.
  • Specific mailboxes may contain sensitive or confidential information that you are not authorized to access. Collecting mailboxes in their entirety, i.e., without filtering the confidential emails, may violate certain conditions.

Method 2: Filtering First, Collecting Later 

In this method, you first perform searches on mailboxes directly using the built-in search functions of email services and products. Email clients, such as Office 365, Gmail, Outlook, etc. provide search options. Afterward, you can collect emails that are relevant to your investigation.

Advantages:

The following are some advantages of this method:

  • Filtering emails first can save you a lot of time as you can perform searches directly on the mailbox and collect the limited emails you need.
  • You may have been directed to not collect an entire mailbox due to privacy concerns. In that case, collecting particular messages sent between specific date ranges and only by certain individuals should be your priority.

Disadvantages:

The following are some disadvantages of this method:

  • If the scope of your investigation expands at a later point, then you may again need the mailboxes involved and perform a new or revised search. This is time-consuming and wastage of resources.
  • Search capabilities are limited even in the top email services, such as Gmail and Office 365. You have to use keyword searches, and it’s difficult to perform advanced searches that are more targeted toward your desired information. So, there is a good chance that you may miss important emails in your search.
  • Search syntax varies from one email service to another. For instance, search syntax in Gmail is different from the Advanced Query Syntax (AQS) used in Microsoft Exchange Web Services. You need to learn all these different syntaxes and commands to search and filter emails for forensic investigation. Stellar Email Forensic is one such tool, which can help to filter, even from webmail service providers, such as Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Office 365, etc.
Method ProsCons
Method 1: Collecting first, filtering laterTo perform a new search is easy, as you have access to the entire set of mailboxes. Enterprise-grade Email forensic tools offer advanced search functions that make the searching task very easy.Collecting entire mailboxes is time-consuming. This can create problems when there are privacy concerns or time constraints.
Method 2: Filtering first, collecting laterSaves time during email collection. At the same time, privacy concerns and time constraints can be addressed.Collecting additional emails that exist in source mailboxes requires re-acquisition of the mailboxes, which can further create unnecessary delays in the investigation process. Performing searches first in email platforms, gives you limited search functions and tools. There is a learning curve with different email platforms as each one follows different search syntax and commands.

Bottom Line

Filtering and searching emails before or after forensic collection have specific pros and cons. If there are privacy concerns or other restrictions while preserving the entire mailboxes, you may have to perform searches on the original mailboxes first, following the security protocol of the organization. However, if you can collect the entire mailboxes and can access the complete database, it is better to collect the entire mailboxes first, and then perform filtering and searching on those mailboxes.

Need a powerful email forensic solution that can search and filter emails for forensic investigation easily? Check out Stellar Email Forensic! It supports 25+ common email file formats, such as EDB, PST, OST, DBX, NSF, MBOX, OLM, etc. It offers deleted email recovery and also has a case management facility. Download it now and use it for free for up to 60 days!

About The Author

Abhinav Sethi

Abhinav Sethi is a Senior Writer at Stellar. He writes articles, blog posts, knowledge-bases, case studies, etc. for different technologies. He also has a keen interest in digital forensics and helps forward-thinking companies fight different threats with apt solutions.

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Table of Contents    

  1. Method 1: Collecting First, Filtering Later
  2. Method 2: Filtering First, Collecting Later 

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