Computer Engineering Commons^™

Preliminary Forensic Analysis Of The Xbox One, Jason Moore, Ibrahim Baggili, Andrew Marrington, Armindo Rodrigues

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

Video game consoles can no longer be viewed as just gaming consoles but rather as full multimedia machines, capable of desktop computer-like performance. The past has shown that game consoles have been used in criminal activities such as extortion, identity theft, and child pornography, but with their ever-increasing capabilities, the likelihood of the expansion of criminal activities conducted on or over the consoles increases. This research aimed to take the initial step of understanding the Xbox One, the most powerful Microsoft console to date. We report the outcome of conducting a forensic examination of the Xbox One, and we provide …

Forensicloud: An Architecture For Digital Forensic Analysis In The Cloud, Cody Miller, Dae Glendowne, David Dampier, Kendall Blaylock

Computer Sciences and Electrical Engineering Faculty Research

The amount of data that must be processed in current digital forensic examinations continues to rise. Both the volume and diversity of data are obstacles to the timely completion of forensic investigations. Additionally, some law enforcement agencies do not have the resources to handle cases of even moderate size. To address these issues we have developed an architecture for a cloud-based distributed processing platform we have named Forensicloud. This architecture is designed to reduce the time taken to process digital evidence by leveraging the power of a high performance computing platform and by adapting existing tools to operate within this …

On The Database Lookup Problem Of Approximate Matching, Frank Breitinger, Harald Baier, Douglas White

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

Investigating seized devices within digital forensics gets more and more difficult due to the increasing amount of data. Hence, a common procedure uses automated file identification which reduces the amount of data an investigator has to look at by hand. Besides identifying exact duplicates, which is mostly solved using cryptographic hash functions, it is also helpful to detect similar data by applying approximate matching.

Let x denote the number of digests in a database, then the lookup for a single similarity digest has the complexity of O(x). In other words, the digest has to be compared against …

A Study Of Forensic Imaging In The Absence Of Write-Blockers, Gary C. Kessler, Gregory H. Carlton

Security Studies & International Affairs - Daytona Beach

"Best practices in digital forensics demand the use of write-blockers when creating forensic images of digital media, and this has been a core tenet of computer forensics training for decades. The practice is so ingrained that the integrity of images created without a write-blocker are immediately suspect. This paper describes a research framework that compares forensic images acquired with and without utilizing write-blockers in order to understand the extent of the differences, if any, in the resultant forensic copies. We specifically address whether differences are superficial or evidentiary, and we discuss the impact of admitting evidence acquired without write blocking. …

Using Internet Artifacts To Profile A Child Pornography Suspect, Marcus K. Rogers, Kathryn C. Seigfried-Spellar

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Digital evidence plays a crucial role in child pornography investigations. However, in the following case study, the authors argue that the behavioral analysis or “profiling” of digital evidence can also play a vital role in child pornography investigations. The following case study assessed the Internet Browsing History (Internet Explorer Bookmarks, Mozilla Bookmarks, and Mozilla History) from a suspected child pornography user’s computer. The suspect in this case claimed to be conducting an ad hoc law enforcement investigation. After the URLs were classified (Neutral; Adult Porn; Child Porn; Adult Dating sites; Pictures from Social Networking Profiles; Chat Sessions; Bestiality; Data Cleaning; …

Exploring Forensic Implications Of The Fusion Drive, Shruti Gupta, Marcus Rogers

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

This paper explores the forensic implications of Apple’s Fusion Drive. The Fusion Drive is an example of auto-tiered storage. It uses a combination of a flash drive and a magnetic drive. Data is moved between the drives automatically to maximize system performance. This is different from traditional caches because data is moved and not simply copied. The research included understanding the drive structure, populating the drive, and then accessing data in a controlled setting to observe data migration strategies. It was observed that all the data is first written to the flash drive with 4 GB of free space always …

An Efficient Similarity Digests Database Lookup – A Logarithmic Divide & Conquer Approach, Frank Breitinger, Christian Rathgeb, Harald Baier

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Investigating seized devices within digital forensics represents a challenging task due to the increasing amount of data. Common procedures utilize automated file identification, which reduces the amount of data an investigator has to examine manually. In the past years the research field of approximate matching arises to detect similar data. However, if n denotes the number of similarity digests in a database, then the lookup for a single similarity digest is of complexity of O(n). This paper presents a concept to extend existing approximate matching algorithms, which reduces the lookup complexity from O(n) to O(log(n)). Our proposed approach is based …

Testing Framework For Mobile Device Forensics Tools, Maxwell Anobah, Shahzad Saleem, Oliver Popov

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The proliferation of mobile communication and computing devices, in particular smart mobile phones, is almost paralleled with the increasing number of mobile device forensics tools in the market. Each mobile forensics tool vendor, on one hand claims to have a tool that is best in terms of performance, while on the other hand each tool vendor seems to be using different standards for testing their tools and thereby defining what support means differently. To overcome this problem, a testing framework based on a series of tests ranging from basic forensics tasks such as file system reconstruction up to more complex …

Quantifying Relevance Of Mobile Digital Evidence As They Relate To Case Types: A Survey And A Guide For Best Practice, Shahzad Saleem, Ibrahim Baggili, Oliver Popov

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

In this work, a survey was conducted to help quantify the relevance of nineteen types of evidence (such as SMS) to seven types of digital investigations associated with mobile devices (MD) (such as child pornography). 97 % of the respondents agreed that every type of digital evidence has a different level of relevance to further or solve a particular investigation. From 55 serious participants, a dataset of 5,772 responses regarding the relevance of nineteen types of digital evidence for all the seven types of digital investigations was obtained. The results showed that (i) SMS belongs to the most relevant type …

A State-Of-The-Art Review Of Cloud Forensics, Sameera Almulla, Youssef Iraqi, Andrew Jones

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Cloud computing and digital forensics are emerging fields of technology. Unlike traditional digital forensics where the target environment can be almost completely isolated, acquired and can be under the investigators control; in cloud environments, the distribution of computation and storage poses unique and complex challenges to the investigators. Recently, the term “cloud forensics” has an increasing presence in the field of digital forensics. In this state-of-the-art review, we included the most recent research efforts that used “cloud forensics” as a keyword and then classify the literature into three dimensions: (1) survey-based, (2) technology-based and (3) forensics-procedural-based. We discuss widely accepted …

Automated Evaluation Of Approximate Matching Algorithms On Real Data, Frank Breitinger, Vassil Roussev

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

Bytewise approximate matching is a relatively new area within digital forensics, but its importance is growing quickly as practitioners are looking for fast methods to screen and analyze the increasing amounts of data in forensic investigations. The essential idea is to complement the use of cryptographic hash functions to detect data objects with bytewise identical representation with the capability to find objects with bytewise similarrepresentations.

Unlike cryptographic hash functions, which have been studied and tested for a long time, approximate matching ones are still in their early development stages and evaluation methodology is still evolving. Broadly, prior approaches have …

A User-Oriented Network Forensic Analyser: The Design Of A High-Level Protocol Analyser, D Joy, F Li, N L. Clarke, S M. Furnell

Australian Digital Forensics Conference

Network forensics is becoming an increasingly important tool in the investigation of cyber and computer-assisted crimes. Unfortunately, whilst much effort has been undertaken in developing computer forensic file system analysers (e.g. Encase and FTK), such focus has not been given to Network Forensic Analysis Tools (NFATs). The single biggest barrier to effective NFATs is the handling of large volumes of low-level traffic and being able to exact and interpret forensic artefacts and their context – for example, being able extract and render application-level objects (such as emails, web pages and documents) from the low-level TCP/IP traffic but also understand how …

A Forensic Overview Of The Lg Smart Tv, Iain Sutherland, Konstantino Xynos, Huw Read, Andy Jones, Tom Drange

Australian Digital Forensics Conference

The emerging Smart TV platform will likely replace traditional television sets over time as the entertainment and communication centrepiece in people’s homes. Given its expanded functionality and now, its online presence, there is a need to identify how they may become part of forensic investigations. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the area of Smart TVs and the potential forensic value these systems present in combination with their ever advancing functionality and capabilities. We provide an overview of Smart TV systems highlighting functionality and potential issues. We also take an initial look at two particular models, from the …

Audit: Automated Disk Investigation Toolkit, Umit Karabiyik, Sudhir Aggarwal

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Software tools designed for disk analysis play a critical role today in forensics investigations. However, these digital forensics tools are often difficult to use, usually task specific, and generally require professionally trained users with IT backgrounds. The relevant tools are also often open source requiring additional technical knowledge and proper configuration. This makes it difficult for investigators without some computer science background to easily conduct the needed disk analysis. In this paper, we present AUDIT, a novel automated disk investigation toolkit that supports investigations conducted by non-expert (in IT and disk technology) and expert investigators. Our proof of concept design …

A Study Of Forensic Imaging In The Absence Of Write-Blockers, Gary C. Kessler, Gregory H. Carlton

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Best practices in digital forensics demand the use of write-blockers when creating forensic images of digital media, and this has been a core tenet of computer forensics training for decades. The practice is so ingrained that the integrity of images created without a write-blocker are immediately suspect. This paper describes a research framework that compares forensic images acquired with and without utilizing write-blockers in order to understand the extent of the differences, if any, in the resultant forensic copies. We specifically address whether differences are superficial or evidentiary, and we discuss the impact of admitting evidence acquired without write blocking. …

A Forensically-Enabled Iaas Cloud Computing Architecture, Saad Alqahtany, Nathan Clarke, Steven Furnell, Christoph Reich

Australian Digital Forensics Conference

Current cloud architectures do not support digital forensic investigators, nor comply with today’s digital forensics procedures largely due to the dynamic nature of the cloud. Whilst much research has focused upon identifying the problems that are introduced with a cloud-based system, to date there is a significant lack of research on adapting current digital forensic tools and techniques to a cloud environment. Data acquisition is the first and most important process within digital forensics – to ensure data integrity and admissibility. However, access to data and the control of resources in the cloud is still very much provider-dependent and complicated …

An Efficient Similarity Digests Database Lookup -- A Logarithmic Divide And Conquer Approach, Frank Breitinger, Christian Rathgeb, Harald Baier

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

Investigating seized devices within digital forensics represents a challenging task due to the increasing amount of data. Common procedures utilize automated file identification, which reduces the amount of data an investigator has to examine manually. In the past years the research field of approximate matching arises to detect similar data. However, if n denotes the number of similarity digests in a database, then the lookup for a single similarity digest is of complexity of O(n). This paper presents a concept to extend existing approximate matching algorithms, which reduces the lookup complexity from O(n) to O(log(n)). Our proposed approach is based …

Quantifying Relevance Of Mobile Digital Evidence As They Relate To Case Types: A Survey And A Guide For Best Practices, Shahzad Saleem, Ibrahim Baggili, Oliver Popov

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

In this work, a survey was conducted to help quantify the relevance of nineteen types of evidence (such as SMS) to seven types of digital investigations associated with mobile devices (MD) (such as child pornography). 97 % of the respondents agreed that every type of digital evidence has a different level of relevance to further or solve a particular investigation. From 55 serious participants, a data set of 5,772 responses regarding the relevance of nineteen types of digital evidence for all the seven types of digital investigations was obtained. The results showed that (i) SMS belongs to the most relevant …

Educating The Next Generation Of Cyberforensic Professionals, Mark Pollitt, Philip Craiger

J. Philip Craiger, Ph.D.