Criminal Investigations

Criminal investigations

Who is FTK Forensic Toolkit for?

FTK Forensic Toolkit, also referred to as FTK Standalone, is purpose-built for forensic examiners and investigative teams who manage evidence in controlled lab environments where chain of custody, repeatability, and evidentiary integrity are non-negotiable.

Digital forensic investigators

Police and federal cyber units

ICAC and child exploitation task forces

Fraud and financial crime investigators

Intelligence and national security analysts

Common Triggers

Large, encrypted or fragmented evidence sets

Overwhelmed local forensic labs

Manual workflows creating risk or delays

Requirement for courtroom-validated toolsets

Need for full offline operation in air-gapped or CJIS-compliant environments

criminal investigations

Achieve smarter outcomes with Exterro FTK Standalone.

Exterro FTK delivers the speed, accuracy, and reliability law enforcement and other public sector investigators demand to perform their duties to the public.

70% faster artifact indexing

Optimized database engine processes evidence at unmatched speed.

100% repeatable and defensible results

Every action is hashed, logged, and auditable for compliance or litigation.

Up to 80% reduction in examiner rework

Single, centralized evidence repository eliminates duplicate effort.

3x faster image validation and decryption

Integrated decryption, hash comparison, and image verification

Full control, zero compromise

Offline operation ensures evidence never leaves the secure lab.

criminal investigations

Capabilities Mapped to Exterro FTK Products

Deep forensic analysis & artifact extraction

FTK Forensic Toolkit

Comprehensive visibility into OS, browser, registry, and communication artifacts

Forensic image acquisition & verification

FTK Imager & FTK Imager Pro

Capture and validate evidence in the field or lab, ensuring authenticity.

Encrypted drive detection & decryption

FTK Forensic Toolkit + FTK Imager Pro

Identify and decrypt BitLocker, AFF4, and AD1 volumes with valid credentials.

Automated case indexing & search

FTK Forensic Toolkit

Find relevant data instantly across terabytes of images.

Evidence export & reporting

FTK Forensic Toolkit + FTK Connect

Generate detailed, defensible case reports for prosecutors and chain-of-custody logs

AI-driven file review

FTK Forensic Toolkit + AI Review Pack

Accelerate media review and document summarization to prioritize key evidence

Learn How

Quickly put FTK Forensic Toolkit to work in criminal investigations.

Acquire

Capture forensic images with FTK Imager or Imager Pro (E01, AFF4, AD1).

Verify

Validate image integrity using MD5/SHA hashing and metadata logging.

Process

Load data into FTK (Standalone) for indexing, carving, and artifact extraction.

Analyze

Filter, search, and correlate evidence across files, registry, chat logs, and

Report

Export findings into court-ready reports, complete with hashes and chain-of-custody documentation.

Hand off

Deliver materials to requesting officers, prosecutors, or relevant authorities for appropriate actions.

Corporate investigations

FTK Exterro Central Use Cases

Most organizations keep far more data than they need—creating unnecessary risk, cost, and complexity. Exterro makes it simple to enforce your retention schedules and defensibly dispose of data that's no longer needed.

State Cybercrime Unit (U.S.)

Multi-device fraud and identity theft case

Reduced image processing time by 65% with FTK’s automated indexing

“FTK gives us clean, repeatable results every time — it’s the gold standard for court."

National Police Service (EU)

Child exploitation investigations across 8 regions

Cut review time from 2 weeks to 3 days using AI Multimedia Search

“The image classifier saved hundreds of man-hours and improved case consistency.”

Federal Investigations Bureau (APAC)

Insider data theft investigation

Validated 4TB of data across 20 endpoints using FTK + Imager Pro

corporate investigations

FTK Forensic Toolkit Integrations & Data Sources

Exterro FTK integrates seamlessly within secure, closed environments — while extending capabilities when connected to Exterro’s broader ecosystem. Compatible formats include E01, AFF4, AD1, DD, and RAW.

Supported Data Sources

Local and external drives

NTFS, APFS, and EXT4

Memory captures and live system images

Email archives

Including PST, OST, and MBOX

Mobile extractions

From tools like Cellebrite, Oxygen, and XRY

Cloud artifacts

Via FTK Central or FTK Connect when permitted

Optional Integrations

FTK Imager

FTK Connect

AI Review Pack

Cloud/SaaS Source Pack

Criminal Investigations

Why is Exterro FTK Forensic Toolkit the right tool for criminal investigations?

For 15 years, FTK Forensic Toolkit has been trusted for criminal investigations due to its speed, accuracy, and reliability.

Full control, zero dependency

Run entirely offline in secure lab environments.

Artifact-first precision

Deepest forensic visibility into OS, memory, browser, and communication data

Unmatched performance

Optimized for large, multi-terabyte case files

Defensible by design

Every operation is hashed, logged, and repeatable.

Future-ready

Compatible with Exterro FTK Central for multi-user expansion when needed