Computational Forensics: Opportunities And Challenges

In this episode of the Forensic Focus podcast, Desi and Si discuss different online programming courses and what they think about the popular platform, Udemy. They also talk about Flipper, Dev boards, and Raspberry Pi, and delve into the fascinating phenomenon of running the classic game Doom on unlikely devices.

Throughout the episode, Desi and Si share their digital forensics expertise, referencing some of the cases they have been working on and highlighting particular methodologies and technologies that have an impact on cybersecurity.

Show Notes:

100 Days of Code: The Complete Python Pro Bootcamp for 2023 - https://www.udemy.com/course/100-days-of-code/

Domestika - https://www.domestika.org/en

MIT OpenCourseWare - https://www.youtube.com/@mitocw

MasterClass - https://www.masterclass.com/

Raspberry Pi 400 Complete Kit - https://core-electronics.com.au/raspberry-pi-400-kit.html

Flipper Discord - https://discord.com/invite/flipper

Flipper Zero - https://flipperzero.one/

This Programmer Figured Out How to Play Doom on a Pregnancy Test - https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a33957256/this-programmer-figured-out-how-to-play-doom-on-a-pregnancy-test/

Here’s a dude playing Doom Eternal on his fridge - https://www.polygon.com/2020/10/13/21514933/doom-eternal-refrigerator-door-samsung-smart-refrigerator-xbox-game-pass-richard-mallard

Doom hacker gets Doom running in Doom - https://www.pcgamer.com/doom-hacker-gets-doom-running-in-doom/

Doom Running On A Calculator Powered By Old Potatoes - https://kotaku.com/doom-running-on-a-calculator-powered-by-old-potatoes-1845374069

GoldenEra - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11753760/

Racing the Beam - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racing_the_Beam

High Score (TV series) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Score_(TV_series)

Microcontroller Courses (Udemy) - https://www.udemy.com/topic/microcontroller/

The story of Final Fantasy XIV’s renegade do-good modders - https://www.pcgamesn.com/final-fantasy-xiv/ffxiv-modders-renegade-do-gooders

Logical fallacies - https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/

In this episode of the Forensic Focus podcast, Si and Desi talk to Mackenzie Jackson, Developer Advocate at Git Guardian.

Mackenzie discusses the problem of hard-coded and leaked credentials in Git repositories, the task of scanning Git repositories for leaked credentials, and how that’s helped by the setup of GitHub and Git.

He also looks at some public and private cases of security breaches through Git repositories and recommends tools you can use to combat attackers on Git.

Show Notes:

Toyota Suffered a Data Breach by Accidentally Exposing A Secret Key Publicly On GitHub (GitGuardian) - https://blog.gitguardian.com/toyota-accidently-exposed-a-secret-key-publicly-on-github-for-five-years/

GitHub.com rotates its exposed private SSH key (Bleeping Computer) - https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/githubcom-rotates-its-exposed-private-ssh-key/

Conpago - https://www.conpago.com.au/

Source Code as a Vulnerability - A Deep Dive into the Real Security Threats From the Twitch Leak (GitGuardian) - https://blog.gitguardian.com/security-threats-from-the-twitch-leak/

Teenagers Leveraging Insider Threats: Lapsus$ Hacker Group (Forbes) - https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilsayegh/2023/03/15/teenagers-leveraging-insider-threats-lapsus-hacker-group

Lapsus$: Oxford teen accused of being multi-millionaire cyber-criminal (BBC) - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-60864283

Dynamic Secrets (HashiCorp) - https://developer.hashicorp.com/vault/tutorials/getting-started/getting-started-dynamic-secrets

Crappy code, crappy Copilot. GitHub Copilot is writing vulnerable code and it could be your fault (GitGuardian) - https://blog.gitguardian.com/crappy-code-crappy-copilot/

trufflesecurity/trufflehog (GitHub) - https://github.com/trufflesecurity/trufflehog

gitleaks/gitleaks (GitHub) - https://github.com/gitleaks/gitleaks

Git (Wikipedia) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git

awslabs/git-secrets (GitHub) - https://github.com/awslabs/git-secrets

In this Mobile Unpacked with Chris Vance webinar, Chris will focus on the Messages app on iOS and its storage components. With Apple’s notable presence in the mobile market in North America, the core Messages app is one forensic examiners are exposed to frequently. With so many additional features beyond just sending and receiving messages, how are those flags stored? This talk will break down many of the different features, settings, and storage locations for SMS & iMessages across the iOS ecosystem.