As cyber related criminal attacks become more predominant in today’s technologically driven society, the need for digital evidence to prosecute such activities has increased. The process used to acquire this digital evidence is digital forensics, a branch of Computer Science. Digital forensic is a new and developing field, still in its infancy, when compared to traditional forensic fields. Over the years, investigation in digital forensic field has been tool centered and being propelled by commercial developers. This, along with lack of established standards to guide digital forensics practitioners has raised divergent and confusing issues in the acceptability of digital evidence. Issues regarding the reliability, confidentiality, verifiability and consistency of digital evidences have been the major obstacles in the acceptance of digital evidence. Consequently, this paper aimed at addressing issues regarding digital forensics investigation process, methods, methodologies and standards for acquiring and preserving digital evidence using the grounded theory approach. Data were gathered using literature surveys, questionnaires and electronic interviews. The results obtained in the study pointed to the fact that there were no existing standards in place for digital forensics investigation process. A framework and methodology was established to address the identified issues thus laying the foundation for a single integrated approach to digital forensics.
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