Articles

Digital Forensics is not just HOW but WHY

This paper will focus on the proper understanding of Digital Forensics from the educational point-of-view and explain the problem with certification based skill validation to establish “expert” skills since Digital Forensic education did not really existed up to just a

An Introduction to Penetration Testing – Part 1

In an earlier article, many moons ago (Sorry Jamie !), I stated my opinion that Forensics and Security were opposite sides of the same coin. I’ve felt very strongly that my skills as a Security Consultant have only been strengthened

The Role of Cyber Terrorism in the Future

By Michael Chance University of New Haven M.S. National Security ABSTRACT Since the events of September 11, 2001 terrorism has been an issue at the forefront of National Security.  This paper will explore the more specific threat of cyberterrorism that

Mobile Phone Forensic Challenges

Introduction A great number of the mobile phones used worldwide every second require special knowledge and skills from forensic experts.  More often it is not enough to be an experienced expert in computer forensics to understand all the peculiarities and

Interview with Noreen Tehrani, Applied Trauma Psychologist, NTA

Can you tell us something about your background and why you decided to work in the field of applied trauma psychology? I have had a very mixed career; I have worked in medical research, as a retail operations director, property

Digital Forensics and eDiscovery Employment – The State of the Market 2012

Forensic Focus recently asked a number of digital forensics and eDiscovery recruitment specialists to comment on the current state of the employment market. Here are their thoughts, please leave your comments below.   Jared Coseglia President, TRU Staffing Partners, US

Overcoming Potential Legal Challenges to the Authentication of Social Media Evidence

By John Patzakis1 Summary: Social media evidence is highly relevant to most legal disputes and broadly discoverable, but challenges lie in evidentiary authentication without best practices technology and processes. This whitepaper examines these challenges faced by eDiscovery practitioners and investigators

Dealing with Data Encryption in Criminal Cases

Introduction Over the last several years, I’ve posted a handful of short blog entries about the topic of compelling a criminal defendant to surrender a passphrase to an encrypted volume or hard-drive.  These entries concern the three cases of re

AccessData FTK 4.0: initial impressions

Introduction In this post, I will provide some initial impressions and findings.  I do not  endeavor to write a white paper, or to employ an industry standard, scientific methodology to evaluating the tool (if for no other reason than because

Firefox Cache Format and Extraction

Introduction In the forensic lab where I work, we frequently investigate malware-infected workstations.  As our user population started shifting from Internet Explorer to Firefox, we observed that one of our favorite forensic tools, Kristinn Gudjonsson’s log2timeline, wasn’t able to provide

Android Tracking – from a forensic point of view

– Introduction – In my last article on iPhoneTracking, I tried to explain Apple’s crowd-sourced location based service. Obviously Android has to do something similar to provide a good user experience using location based services… Also back in April 2011

Eleventh Circuit Rules Defendant Cannot Be Compelled to Divulge Encryption Passphrase

Barely three weeks after I penned Another Judge Rules Encryption Passphrase not Testimonial Under Fifth Amendment Analysis, the Eleventh Circuit has held that a defendant’s “decryption and production of the hard drives’ contents would trigger Fifth Amendment protection because it

The Data Specimen is the Blood of Cyber Forensics

At first glance, one would assume that the only common thread that runs between a forensic lab that analyzes blood samples, fingerprints and DNA evidence, and a Cyber forensic lab that analyzes data is that both processes verify the facts