http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Forensics-JumpStart-Michael-Solomon/dp/0470931663/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&qid=1323889955&sr=8-15This was the 1st computer forensic book I have read and I learned a great deal from it. Like most intro books, it starts off pretty slow and gets into more interesting parts of CF. I read the book in about 3 days, so that kind of shows how interested I was.
I liked how the book gave a definition on the side of the page, for people who are not in IT or just beginners in IT. Rarely did the book do this but it did a couple times, they explained pretty basic IT knowledge like TCP/IP, and computer hardware over a couple pages of review (ex: what does DNS mean and stand for, what is a hard drive, what is a USB drive, etc...).
I would say each chapter had something interesting in it and the "real life examples" every ten pages or so were REALLY interesting. Just reading the real life examples made me want to join the field, and a lot of the cases are so different from one another.
My favorite chapter was # 8 "Common Forensic Tools". Even from reading and using some pentesting tools the past 6 months, I hadn't heard of any of the forensic tools listed(EnCase, FTK, and etc..). So it was fun to read about each one and what they did..but after 10 minutes of reading I wanted to actually use them but from my knowledge so far they are expensive..so that sucks.
I would recommend this book to new people in the field or just anyone interested in CF. There will probably be a lot of stuff you already know (computer hardware, TCP/IP, and security concepts) but there will also be a lot of stuff you didn't know (forensic tools, certain types of evidence, how to make sure you're gathering the evidence correctly, and tips on how to present data and evidence to the juror).
General Certification : CPT Practical Submission
