UK police ‘encouraged’ to hack more

The Home Office has signed up to an EU strategy against cybercrime that “encourages” police across Europe to remotely access personal computers. The plan has sparked fears that the government is looking to increase police powers to hack into people’s

Computer forensics helped solve Craigslist robberies

Durham County prosecutors who wrapped up two robbery cases last week involving the online classifieds site Craigslist say computer forensics played a key role in the case…Durham County Assistant District Attorney Stormy Ellis said Durham police were able to trace

Computer forensics – a subject every executive should understand

One of the least researched, but most important subject areas for the future of business is the field of computer forensics. It’s a huge area and a massive challenge for all organisations that rely on digital transactions. In the past,

Events calendar offline

The events calendar will be offline for a few days for testing. Apologies for any inconvenience. Jamie

Compiling evidence boils down to a matter of time

IT needs a consistent approach to creating timestamps for forensic computing. Whenever evidence about what is found on a hard drive is put before courts, the lawyers usually fail to ask the right question. They want to know whether certain

SIM PIN Challenge

Our resident mobile forensics expert, Greg Smith, has posted a SIM PIN Challenge in the new Mobile Forensics forum. Full details can be found here. Good luck, everyone!

So You Want to Be a Cybersleuth?

Rick Ayers doesn’t look much like the geek he says he has always been. A former golfer and rock guitarist, six feet tall, with a weight lifter’s build, long hair and a soul patch, Mr. Ayers, 37, stands out in

Gujarat DFS now able to access damaged SIM cards

A gangster senses that the police are behind him and he could be caught any time. To save his established network of goons and even high-profile people, he extracts the Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) of his mobile phone and chews

BKForensics reveals the secrets of the cell phone

True story: The Orlando (Fla.) Police Department is taking a homicide suspect to trial. The bad guy’s cell phone is being held as evidence. Apply sophisticated software to reconstruct deleted files and — what have we here? We see the

Voom Technologies Releases HardCopy 3

Voom Technologies (www.voomtech.com) has released HardCopy 3 (HC3), a faster, upgraded and enriched version of their renowned HardCopy 2 computer forensics hard-drive duplicator. HC3 offers data transfer speeds of up to 7.5 GB/min., eclipsing Voom’s own HardCopy 2. The HC3

Does the Internet Need its Own Police Force?

2008 has been a year of growth in malware, infections, botnets and criminal profits. Recently, some security experts called for the punishment of these criminal activities. Criminal activity for financial gain remains the driver for the massive increase in Internet

BCS forms cybercrime forensics group

A spike in UK-based cyber crime has prompted the British Computer Society (BCS) to form a new specialist group in the fight against online fraud. The BCS Cybercrime Forensics Specialist Group will gather and interpret digital evidence for investigations, as

Ineffective law enforcement, bad economy fueling cybercrime

Cybercriminals operating worldwide are benefitting from ineffective law enforcement and a growing economic recession that could make jittery people more susceptible to cybercrime scams. So concludes security firm McAfee in its new report, “Virtual Criminology Report—Cybercrime vs. Cyberlaw.” published Tuesday.

UK businesses urged to devise digital-forensics plans

Firms should put in place forensics plans for incidents that may require computer evidence to be handed over, according to an influential security body. The Information Assurance Advisory Council (IAAC) published a report on Tuesday that aims to provide organisations

PmExplorer released

PmExplorer is a forensic software tool for the review and examination of PM files for Nokia mobile telephones. PM files can be obtained with third party hardware and software utilities such as sarasoft and the SHU box. PmExplorer differs from

The Julie Amero case, part II: May the farce be with you

The Julie Amero case has stirred up a lot of emotions, including some from Cringe readers who feel I was less than fair in my description of the expert witness hired by Amero’s attorney, Herb Horner. You know what? They’re