From the 3rd to the 6th of June 2018, Forensic Focus will be attending the Techno Security & Digital Forensics Conference in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, USA. If there are any topics you’d particularly like us to cover, or any speakers you think we should interview, please let us know in the comments.
Below is an overview of the subjects and speakers that will be featured at Techno Security. The conference has several tracks, including audit / risk management; forensics; information security; investigations; and labs run by Cellebrite and Magnet Forensics. Forensic Focus will be concentrating on the digital forensics track throughout the event.
Sunday June 3rd
The conference will begin at 12pm with a talk by Lee Reiber of Oxygen Forensics, who will discuss the forensic implications of 2-factor authentication, which is becoming more widely used across a variety of applications and devices. Meanwhile Jimmy Schoering from DME Forensics will be demonstrating how to recover video evidence with DVR examiner.
Chip-off mobile forensics is the next topic on the agenda, followed by an interesting talk from Mark Spencer at Arsenal Consulting, who will look at how digital forensics can fail when high stakes evidence tampering occurs. The case study of investigative journalist Barıs Pehlivan will be discussed: Pehlivan was accused by Turkish prosecutors of membership in a terrorist organization and imprisoned for over a year and a half, based entirely on forged documents recovered from his work computer.
SSDs are becoming increasingly popular as storage options across many types of device; Roman Morozov from ACE Lab will demonstrate how to extract digital evidenc from these drives using low-level access as a key. Alongside this, Christopher Vance from Magnet will be taking attendees through an in-depth look at iOS 11 and Android Nougat / Oreo.
Two representatives from Atola Technology will then discuss the need for speed in digital forensic investigations: something that’s difficult to attain in a field where backlogs are prevalent! Relatedly, triage in investigations will be discussed by Cyan Forensics at the same time, and the day will draw to a close with two sessions about forensic analysis of modern instant messengers and detection of metadata spoofing in MS Office documents respectively.
Monday June 4th
On Monday the program will begin at 8am with a keynote address from Roman Yampolskiy, who will discuss artificial intelligence and the future of cybersecurity: a hot topic in today’s world!
A panel discussion at 9.30am will look at ‘the millennial mind’: looking at the specific challenges involved in investigating devices owned by millennials. Simultaneously Ed Michael from Cellebrite will be taking attendees through a case study of how UFED helped to solve the case of the YJB gang, who spent three years wreaking havoc throughout Florida before finally being caught.
At 10:30am Jessica Hyde from Magnet Forensics will discuss whether machine learning can actually help an investigation: it’s a popular idea and in theory a great time saver, but there are reasons for caution.
After lunch, two representatives from Kroll will take “a nerd’s-eye view” of malware frameworks ModPOS and RawPOS. This will be followed by a discussion about vehicle forensics – an increasing aspect of forensic investigation nowadays, especially with the advent of self-driving cars; and the day will then draw to a close with a session by Herbert Joe covering forensic analysis of audio, video and acoustic evidence.
Tuesday June 5th
At 9:30am on Tuesday Logicube will be demonstrating Falcon-NEO’s capabilities and how it can help digital forensic investigations. Alongside this, Jad Saliba from Magnet will be looking at bitcoin and the dark web, and showing us how to conduct investigations on people who really don’t want to be found. In a room down the hall, Jessica Hyde will be showing attendees how to link common artefacts with each other and see connections between different pieces of evidence. Choosing just one session to attend may be a challenge!
Mac file systems can be a minefield, especially if you’re not used to them, so if this is something that concerns you, make sure you attend Sara Treleven’s session on the topic in the morning. This will be followed by Ed Michael from Cellebrite looking at advanced techniques for acquiring and analysing evidence from mobile devices, including Linux, Python scripting and Cellebrite’s Physical Analyzer.
Following the lunchbreak, the afternoon sessions will kick off with Lee Reiber from Oxygen taking a look at drone data. The final session of the day will be a panel discussion on “big forensics”, or investigation of large organisations.
Wednesday June 6th
The final day of the conference will begin with Amber Schroader, founder of Paraben, talking about modern smartphones and the challenges associated with analysing data acquired from them. Three presenters will then demonstrate how to use deep learning techniques to identify child abuse material in videos.
The day will draw to a close early, with the final session at 11am being from Alexander Rasin from DePaul University. Alexander will show us how to forensically investigate databases.
As well as the conference itself, there are several pre- and post-conference sessions available from Belkasoft, Cellebrite, Magnet and TEEL Technologies. You can find out more about these sessions here.
To view the full conference program and register to attend, please visit the official website. Forensic Focus readers can enjoy a 30% discount on the registration price by entering the code FFOCUS18 when booking.
If there are any talks you would specifically like us to cover, or any speakers you’d especially like to see interviewed, please leave a comment below or email scar@forensicfocus.com.
