File signatures are often used in digital forensics to ensure the integrity of files. For example, some people try to jeopardize their previous company by distributing important sensitive content that is meant to stay private. They may copy it to their drives and then rename the files such that they have different extensions (.pdf,.jpg,. etc). However, the actual file data never changes and therefore, we can look at the raw hexidecimal digits to identify what the original file type was. Conventionally, tools like Wireshark (a packet analyzer) are used to analyze raw data, but this converter goes a step further to seclude those blocks of digits. Placing these blocks into a hex editor such as HxD will allow one to construct the file itself (for example, you could actually see the image/excel/pdf/etc file). The table above shows a few of the most common types.
