Complete Digital Forensics Session A – Evidence Integrity

Before you begin

• Your institution has enabled Domain Laboratories.
• You have an active Academic Enrolment on the Course Offering.
• Teaching staff have attached and enabled the Digital Forensics Laboratory for your offering.

Open the laboratory

1. Open My Learning and enter the Course Offering Learning Experience.
2. Open Laboratories.
3. Select Launch (or Continue) for Digital Forensics Laboratory.
4. You stay inside Learning Experience — there is no separate forensics dashboard.

Find Session A on the laboratory hub

1. On the Digital Forensics Laboratory hub, review the investigation context and the week layout.
2. Under Week 1, open the Session A – Evidence Integrity module.
3. Select Start Session A (or Continue Session A / Review Session A if you already started).

Complete Session A – Evidence Integrity

1. Register evidence — read the short “Before you register” guidance, then enter identifier, description, source, category, date/time, examiner, and the sample content that will be hashed. Optional teaching fields (collected by, location, lab reference, device/file name, condition) can be filled if useful; they do not change hashing. After submission, registration is read-only.
2. Chain of custody — add at least one transfer (from custodian → to custodian, with date/time). Custody events are append-only.
3. Use Session progress actions when needed:
   • View registration — review the locked registration record.
   • View custody — review custody events.
   • Use different sample — replace only the hashing sample before confirmation (registration stays locked; you must regenerate and re-verify hashes).
   • Return to laboratory — go back to the Digital Forensics hub.
4. Read the hashing explanation, then Generate hashes — digests are created from the registered sample text (there is no file upload in this lab). SHA-256 is the primary algorithm; SHA-1 and MD5 appear for comparison only.
5. Click Copy on the SHA-256 digest, keep Algorithm set to SHA-256, paste into Comparison hash, then Verify hash. An exact match is a pass.
6. After each step (or on reload), the page returns you to the step you need next so you do not have to scroll from the top.
7. Confirm evidence — lock the evidence record and build the summary.
8. Optionally Export PDF for your evidence summary.
9. Select Complete Session A to finish and return to the Digital Forensics Laboratory hub.

Try again (practice reset)

If you want to practice a session again after class:

1. Return to the Digital Forensics Laboratory hub.
2. On the session card, select Try again.
3. Confirm the prompt. That session’s attempt is cleared so you can start fresh.
4. Later sessions from that point are also cleared so the investigation stays consistent. Your case file stays open.

Notes

• Your work is stored on a student case file for this Course Offering. Later sessions append; earlier records are not overwritten.
• Progress is visible to teaching staff on the Course Offering Laboratories attachment.
• After Session A is complete, Session B – Browser Evidence unlocks under Week 1 on the same hub.
• Weeks 2 and 3 (Sessions C–G) unlock in order as you complete each previous session.