It is the fourth article in "Catch Me If You Can" series. The previous three articles were talking about how to prevent from being catch. However, this article is talking about once you have been arrested what can you do to prevent from being charged for hacking.
Once you have been arrested, your digital devices (such as personal computers, laptops, smartphones and other devices) should be seized. The "device" below is applied to Personal Computers and Laptops only. Laws enforcement would conduct digital forensic on all your devices in order to seek any evidence of cyber crime that you have conducted. However, if your devices are still switching on when you are arrested, laws enforcement would not turn your device off and would conduct the digital forensic right away.
You can use Bleachbit to delete all deleted files, logs and backups. However, some valuable files may not be deleted. Therefore, Bleachbit may not be a very good solution even it is good practice to use it for the purpose.
Offense Security's Kali Linux development team ported a Self-Destruction Luks encryption on Kali Linux since version 1.0.6 that allows the hard drive (or SSD) to be encrypted fully with normal and nuke passphrases. Once the nuke passphrase is entered, all the passphrase for the decryption will be deleted and the hard drive (or SSD) cannot be recovered. Therefore, the hard drive (SSD) is safe for being digital forensic. If you are not using Kali Linux for the hacking, you can apply self-destruction Luks encryption for some other Linux distributions.
It is recommended that the self-destruction nuke passphrase is much shorter than the normal passphrase in order to prevent your device from being brute forcing. Meanwhile, it is not recommended to backup your normal passphrases somewhere.
How about the device is still switching on? It is recommended to force turn off the device by long pressing the power button or unplug the power supply if you can while you are being arrested. Make sure you setup your device to turn off when the power button is long pressed instead of suspension.
Difference countries should have difference cyber crime laws. Even laws enforcement cannot get any evidence from your devices but you may be charged for other offences under the laws of your country.
That's all! See you.
Reference
Emergency Sef-destruction Luks in Kali
Luks and Nuke Key Installation on Ubuntu
Bleachbit
See Also
Catch Me If You Can
Catch Me If You Can 2
Catch Me If You Can 3