Philippine police say computer crimes on the rise

Computer crimes reported to police are on the rise, the Philippine National Police said Saturday. According to a briefing paper on cyber crimes prepared by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, a total of 1,843 crimes involving computers were reported

Major Canadian hacker ring cracked

Canadian police have arrested 17 people suspected of running the country’s largest and most damaging hacker network. The Sûreté du Québec and Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested people in 12 locations in a co-ordinated series of dawn raids. The gang

Disk encryption may not be secure enough, new research finds

Computer scientists have discovered a novel way to bypass the encryption used in programs like Microsoft’s BitLocker and Apple’s FileVault and then view the contents of supposedly secure files. In a paper (PDF) published Thursday that could prompt a rethinking

Harbor Springs police go hi-tech

Early last year the Harbor Springs Police Department received grant money to purchase hardware and software to investigate digital crimes committed in Northern Michigan. Resident tech enthusiast at the department, officer Steve Timmons, was more than happy to take the

Searching Laptops at the US Border and In Airports

This month, the Asian Law Caucus (ALC) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), two civil liberties groups based in Northern California, filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to force the government to disclose its policies on

Crime fears as cheap PCs head for Africa

What if the plans to spread low-cost One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) and Intel Classmate computers to the developing world work? What if in a few years there are hundreds of millions of them out there? Many might applaud. But

Could computer forensics help your organisation?

Forensics is not yet a mainstream field and descriptions and definitions vary. Yet how do organisations integrate incident response, breach handling and forensic examination into a security strategy? That security strategy should be defined by policies and procedures to minimise

New niche for e-discovery: special masters

The increased use of electronic discovery has resulted in a new set of practitioners: e-discovery special masters. A special master is an officer of the court appointed to help with its proceedings, and may perform functions such as taking testimony

Digital Forensics – An Interview with Dr. Hany Farid

Digital Forensics. Think of that phrase. It could be the title of a new TV crime show. However, recently developed software by Dr. Hany Farid of Dartmouth College is far more serious than an hour of frivolous, sensationalist TV. In

Encrypted Laptop Poses Legal Dilemma

When Sebastien Boucher stopped at the U.S.-Canadian border, agents who inspected his laptop said they found files containing CP. But when they tried to examine the images after his arrest, authorities were stymied by a password-protected encryption program. Now Boucher

Vector Trace – a hit with Hollywood and the FBI

In the new film “Untraceable,” FBI agents are desperate to track down a maniac who tortures people to death and broadcasts his crimes live over the Internet. To find the villain, the agents use the same Internet tools used by

Al-Qaeda’s 007

The extraordinary story of the solitary computer geek in a Shepherds Bush bedsit who became the world’s most wanted cyber-jihadist…When specialist forensic science officers arrived, they found that Tsouli had been creating a website called YOUBOMBIT. A banner with the

Ignorance wrecking evidence

Evidence stored on computers and other electronic devices is being damaged or destroyed by ignorant staff and investigators. One of the “handful” of people in SA equipped to retrieve digital evidence, Jean Pierre du Plessis from forensic service provider Ferrier

Big Brother in the office

More New Zealand workers are under the watchful gaze of surveillance cameras and tracking devices at work as employers crack down on dishonesty and time-wasting, experts say…Alan Watt, managing director of Computer Forensic Investigations, said he had built a business