Why Examination Protocols Are Problematic

Forensic examination lays bare a user’s computer activity. Personal, confidential and privileged communications, sexual misadventure, financial and medical record keeping, proprietary business data and other sensitive information are all exposed. In the white-picket-fenced places where active data lives, you can

Proof: Pop-Up Teacher is Innocent, Despite Misdemeanor Plea

Accused of letting impressionable students see pornographic pictures as she browsed the web in her classroom, former Connecticut school teacher Julie Amero dodged felony charges last Friday by agreeing to plead guilty to a single misdemeanor charge and surrendering her

The mobile device investigator’s toolbox

These days, virtually every major criminal activity leaves evidence — images, text messages, call records and more — on mobile devices. Yet for the investigator who knows only the basics or less about how to recover this evidence, building a

Five Essential Computer Forensics Tools

I recently had a look at the most recent CSI security survey. While a lot of things have changed over the past year, one thing is definitely consistent: attacks happen. At one point, attacks on companies were as high as

Judge: No cryptographic hash analysis without warrant

In a case that could have important implications for law enforcement investigations throughout the US, a federal judge has ruled that the cryptographic fingerprinting of suspects’ hard drives constitutes a search for purposes of the Constitution… More (The Register)

UK businesses lack confidence in police e-crime handling

Businesses are not confident that the police have the necessary resources or technical knowledge to deal with e-crime effectively, a survey has found…”In our experience, few electronic crimes are taken seriously by the police,” said one respondent to the survey.

Police enlist AI to help tackle crime

Looking at how AI techniques can boost digital forensics, the UK government-funded Cyber Security Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) will examine the potential use of AI in web counter-terrorism surveillance, fighting internet fraud, masking identities online and data mining. The KTN

Passware Exposes Private Data Indexed by Windows Search

Search Index Examiner lists all the documents, emails, and spreadsheets, as well as providing creation and modification dates, author, recipients, summary content, and other information for each item. The only data it needs from the target computer is a Windows

“Breath tests” for PCs heralds stop and scan

Technology that claims to pick up traces of illicit images on PCs has attracted the interest of Australian cops. The software, developed in an Australian University, might eventually be used to screen PCs during border inspections. Compared to breath test

University develops digital fingerprinting technology

Security experts say an innovative technology, codenamed ‘digital DNA’, offers a completely new perspective on tracking computer activity. It is based on a novel collection and analysis technique that identifies sequences in user access of data, leaving behind a digital

Digital Technology Footprints Trip Up Suspects

The man denied any wrongdoing, but Lakeland police had something on him – his cell phone. Since the department founded its intelligence unit in 2001, cell phones, computers, MP3 players, and many other forms of digital technology have taken on

SANS Announces New Resources for Computer Forensics

Forensics experts tend to work alone or in small groups and have few ways of sharing the most important lessons they are learning. SANS is trying to fill that gap in part because SANS trained many of the most effective

Secure Hash Competition Kicks Off

Dozens of amateur and professional cryptographers signed up last week for the United States’ first open competition to create a secure algorithm for generating hashes – the digital fingerprints widely used in a variety of security functions. The contest, run

AccessData offer for Guidance Software announced, rejected

AccessData Corporation has announced that on October 6th it sent a letter to Guidance Software expressing its interest in acquiring all of the company’s outstanding stock. On Friday October 31st, AccessData reports that it received a reply from Guidance Software

Computer crime soars in UK

Computer related crimes have risen by almost 10 percent in the UK last year alone, according to online identity firm, Garlick. The report claims that over 3.5 million online crimes were committed in the UK in 2007 – most of

libpff (alpha) released for open source PST and OST forensics

An alpha version of libpff for forensic investigators using open source forensic tools has been released. Libpff is a library with tools to read, extract and recover deleted e-mails. The file format on the personal folder format can be found