The key principle a digital forensics investigator must adhere to is ensuring competence and the ability to justify their actions. This is crucial because the integrity of the investigation and the evidence must be maintained. Competence ensures that the investigator has the necessary skills and knowledge to handle and analyze the data correctly. Being able to justify their actions is important for the legal process, as every step of the investigation may be scrutinized in court.This principle aligns with the Information Security Management Principles, which emphasize the importance of procedural/people security controls and technical security controls to maintain the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information.Reference: BCS Foundation Certificate in Information Security Management Principles1.

When preserving a crime scene for digital evidence, it is crucial to maintain the integrity of the evidence while also ensuring that volatile data is not lost. The initial actions should include photographing all evidence, which helps document the scene and the location of digital devices. This is important for later analysis and may be required for legal proceedings. Triage is the process of determining the importance of digital evidence and whether live data capture is necessary.Live data capture can be essential because some data can be lost if a device is powered down, such as encryption keys or active network connections1.

When selecting a third-party digital forensics service provider, it is crucial to ensure that the company has the appropriate accreditations and the staff hold relevant certifications. This ensures that the service provider adheres to recognized standards and best practices in digital forensics, which is essential for the integrity and admissibility of evidence. Company accreditation provides assurance that the organization follows industry-recognized quality standards, while staff certification demonstrates that the individuals handling the forensic process are qualified and competent. This combination is vital for maintaining the credibility of the forensic investigation and the security of the data handled.

The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is the current specification for the encryption of electronic data established by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). AES is a symmetric block cipher that can encrypt (encipher) and decrypt (decipher) information, converting data to an unintelligible form called ciphertext and back to its original form, plaintext. The AES algorithm is capable of using cryptographic keys of 128, 192, and 256 bits to encrypt and decrypt data in blocks of 128 bits.It was selected by NIST as a Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) to protect electronic data and is widely recognized and used for secure data encryption1.

RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adleman) is a widely accepted asymmetric encryption algorithm. Unlike symmetric algorithms, which use the same key for both encryption and decryption, asymmetric algorithms use a pair of keys -- a public key for encryption and a private key for decryption. This method allows for secure key exchange over an insecure channel without the need to share the private key. RSA operates on the principle that it is easy to multiply large prime numbers together to create a product, but it is hard to reverse the process, i.e., to factorize the product back into the original primes. This one-way function underpins the security of RSA.