Forensics has gained lot of popularity and importance because of its ability to dig out and study certain materials or things to analyze their properties, capabilities etc. Forensics is used for examining the criminal activities and establishing different relationships between different things. Based on the same principal, engineers have now devised a special field called digital forensics. Digital forensics is nothing but a complete investigation of the digital devices, again to fit in a correlation between computer crime and some digital activity or crime. With the growth of the computers, even computer crimes have started surfacing significantly in different ways and for different things. And that is how slowly digital forensics came into picture, as it covers not only computers but all the digital devices, including cell phones, tablets etc.

Some of the major branches of digital forensics:

Computer forensics: Computer forensics is the field from where the entire concept and roots of digital forensics originated from. Computer forensics helps in examining the digital activities of computers to analyze the occurrence of some illegal or criminal activities. This field is capable of handling and screening through lot of data to get accurate results and appropriate outcomes from the same.

Mobile Device forensics: Mobile device forensics is similar to computer forensics but as it is obvious from the name, computer forensics deals with computers but mobile device forensics deals with mobile devices and possible frauds related to them. The engineers try and extract information from the mobile devices in different ways to prove a point. The phones usually have an inbuilt system, where in data can be stored and then extracted.

Network forensics: network forensics is an enhanced form of computer forensics, wherein the entire computer network is under scrutiny. The engineers map the entire network and figure out the occurrence of any misleading or non-normal activities up there. It is a complex but excellent way of gathering data and extracting some evidence out of the same.

Database forensics: the world has technologically developed a lot and hence more the number of technologies, the chances or opportunities of somebody misusing them also increase. Hence, special bunch of people are required to keep a track of different activities at different places. Database forensics deals with the analysis of data embedded in databases. The information, log files etc of the databases can be analyzed to get information and relate things to them.
Digital forensics has gained lot of popularity and there are several real life examples that prove the abilities and reliability of the system. Digital forensics can be applied in different areas and different fields to get accurate information and to authenticate the execution of something via a particular medium or device.