Survey of File Carving Techniques

• Main Authors: NOR IKA SHAHIRAH, RAMLI, SYIFAK IZHAR, HISHAM, MOHD FAIZAL ABD, RAZAK
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Springer, Cham 2021
• Subjects: QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science
• Online Access: http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/42060/2/Survey%20of%20File.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/42060/; https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-70713-2_74
• Institution: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak

File carving is a method that enables researchers to collect data from unallocated memory space. File carving is a technique used to retrieve data other than data recovery technique and data restoration technique. In general, carving is used to retrieve data with the absence of metadata that point to the content. There are various styles of file carving techniques used for types of files, including PDF, JPEG, XML and etc. [5]. This paper focuses mainly on the different types of carving techniques commonly used based on particular circumstances. The key contribution of this paper is the study and analysis of current existing file carving techniques for file carving in order to define their functionality. These techniques are also classified according to the carving method styles used and the fragmentation issues as well as the type of a file system since these techniques rely on the content and the file structure of the particular file to be carved. This paper is divided into two sections, the first section is the traditional carving approach and the second section is the advanced carving approach. This paper will be a guide for researchers searching for carving techniques in order to choose the appropriate carving algorithm and to continue improving it in the future.