Forensic Science and Technology Commons^™

Non-Use Of A Mobile Phone During Conducting Crime Can Also Be Evidential, Vinod Polpaya Bhattathiripad Ph D

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Cyber-clever criminals who are aware of the consequence of using mobile phones during conducting crimes often stay away from their phones while involved in crimes. Some of them even change their handset and SIM card, subsequently. This article looks into how, intentional disassociation (and even unintentional non-use) of mobile phone in (non-cyber) crimes, can become evidential clues of the perpetrators’ involvement in criminal acts. With the help of a recent judicial episode, this article reveals how extremely careful and masterful handling of extensive and voluminous Call Details Records and tower dumps by a cyber-savvy investigating official can unearth evidential clues …

Live Gpu Forensics: The Process Of Recovering Video Frames From Nvidia Gpu, Yazeed M. Albabtain, Baijian Yang

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The purpose of this research is to apply a graphics processing unit (GPU) forensics method to recover video artifacts from NVIDIA GPU. The tested video specs are 512 x 512 in resolution for video 1 and 800 x 600 in resolution for video 2. Both videos are mpeg4 video codec. A VLC player was used in the experiment. A special program has been developed using OpenCL to recover 1) patterns that are frames consist of pixel values and 2) dump data from the GPU global memory. The dump data that represent the video frame were located using simple steps. The …

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Forensic Investigation Process: Dji Phantom 3 Drone As A Case Study, Alan Roder, Kim-Kwang Raymond Choo, Nhien-A Le-Khac

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Drones (also known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles – UAVs) are a potential source of evidence in a digital investigation, partly due to their increasing popularity in our society. However, existing UAV/drone forensics generally rely on conventional digital forensic investigation guidelines such as those of ACPO and NIST, which may not be entirely fit-for-purpose. In this paper, we identify the challenges associated with UAV/drone forensics. We then explore and evaluate existing forensic guidelines, in terms of their effectiveness for UAV/drone forensic investigations. Next, we present our set of guidelines for UAV/drone investigations. Finally, we demonstrate how the proposed guidelines can be …

Detection And Recovery Of Anti-Forensic (Vault) Applications On Android Devices, Michaila Duncan, Umit Karabiyik

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Significant number of mobile device users currently employ anti-forensics applications, also known as vault or locker applications, on their mobile devices in order to hide files such as photos. Because of this, investigators are required to spend a large portion of their time manually looking at the applications installed on the device. Currently, there is no automated method of detecting these anti-forensics applications on an Android device. This work presents the creation and testing of a vault application detection system to be used on Android devices. The main goal of this work is twofold: (i) Detecting and reporting the presence …

Automated Man-In-The-Middle Attack Against Wi‑Fi Networks, Martin Vondráček, Jan Pluskal, Ondřej Ryšavý

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Currently used wireless communication technologies suffer security weaknesses that can be exploited allowing to eavesdrop or to spoof network communication. In this paper, we present a practical tool that can automate the attack on wireless security. The developed package called wifimitm provides functionality for the automation of MitM attacks in the wireless environment. The package combines several existing tools and attack strategies to bypass the wireless security mechanisms, such as WEP, WPA, and WPS. The presented tool can be integrated into a solution for automated penetration testing. Also, a popularization of the fact that such attacks can be easily automated …

Back Matter, Adfsl

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Front Matter, Adfsl

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Contents, Adfsl

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

An Overview Of The Usage Of Default Passwords, Brandon Knierem, Xiaolu Zhang, Philip Levine, Frank Breitinger, Ibrahim Baggili

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

The recent Mirai botnet attack demonstrated the danger of using default passwords and showed it is still a major problem. In this study we investigated several common applications and their password policies. Specifically, we analyzed if these applications: (1) have default passwords or (2) allow the user to set a weak password (i.e., they do not properly enforce a password policy). Our study shows that default passwords are still a significant problem: 61% of applications inspected initially used a default or blank password. When changing the password, 58% allowed a blank password, 35% allowed a weak password of 1 character.

If I Had A Million Cryptos: Cryptowallet Application Analysis And A Trojan Proof-Of-Concept, Trevor Haigh, Frank Breitinger, Ibrahim Baggili

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

Cryptocurrencies have gained wide adoption by enthusiasts and investors. In this work, we examine seven different Android cryptowallet applications for forensic artifacts, but we also assess their security against tampering and reverse engineering. Some of the biggest benefits of cryptocurrency is its security and relative anonymity. For this reason it is vital that wallet applications share the same properties. Our work, however, indicates that this is not the case. Five of the seven applications we tested do not implement basic security measures against reverse engineering. Three of the applications stored sensitive information, like wallet private keys, insecurely and one was …

Digital Forensic Readiness In Organizations: Issues And Challenges, Nickson Menza Karie, Simon Maina Karume Dr.

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

With the evolution in digital technologies, organizations have been forced to change the way they plan, develop, and enact their information technology strategies. This is because modern digital technologies do not only present new opportunities to business organizations but also a different set of issues and challenges that need to be resolved. With the rising threats of cybercrimes, for example, which have been accelerated by the emergence of new digital technologies, many organizations as well as law enforcement agencies globally are now erecting proactive measures as a way to increase their ability to respond to security incidents as well as …

Legislative Requirements For Cyber Peacekeeping, Nikolay Akatyev, Joshua I. James

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Cyber Peacekeeping strives for the prevention, mitigation and cessation of cyber and physical conflicts. The creation of a Cyber Peacekeeping organization, however, has major legal and political implications. In this work we review current international legislation applicable for functions of Cyber Peacekeeping. Specifically, we analyze prominent works which contribute to definitions, law and ethics regulating cyber conflicts from the perspective of the creation of a CPK organization. Legislative and terminological foundations are analyzed and adopted from current practice. Further, this work analyzes guiding principles of global organizations such as ITU IMPACT, INTERPOL and regional organizations such as NATO and the …

Forensic State Acquisition From Internet Of Things (Fsaiot): A General Framework And Practical Approach For Iot Forensics Through Iot Device State Acquisition, Christopher S. Meffert, Devon R. Clark, Ibrahim Baggili, Frank Breitinger

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

IoT device forensics is a difficult problem given that manufactured IoT devices are not standardized, many store little to no historical data, and are always connected; making them extremely volatile. The goal of this paper was to address these challenges by presenting a primary account for a general framework and practical approach we term Forensic State Acquisition from Internet of Things (FSAIoT). We argue that by leveraging the acquisition of the state of IoT devices (e.g. if an IoT lock is open or locked), it becomes possible to paint a clear picture of events that have occurred. To this end, …

Breaking Into The Vault: Privacy, Security And Forensic Analysis Of Android Vault Applications, Xiaolu Zhang, Ibrahim Baggili, Frank Breitinger

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

In this work we share the first account for the forensic analysis, security and privacy of Android vault applications. Vaults are designed to be privacy enhancing as they allow users to hide personal data but may also be misused to hide incriminating files. Our work has already helped law enforcement in the state of Connecticut to reconstruct 66 incriminating images and 18 videos in a single criminal case. We present case studies and results from analyzing 18 Android vault applications (accounting for nearly 220 million downloads from the Google Play store) by reverse engineering them and examining the forensic artifacts …

Downstream Competence Challenges And Legal/Ethical Risks In Digital Forensics, Michael M. Losavio, Antonio Losavio

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Forensic practice is an inherently human-mediated system, from processing and collection of evidence to presentation and judgment. This requires attention to human factors and risks which can lead to incorrect judgments and unjust punishments.

For digital forensics, such challenges are magnified by the relative newness of the discipline and the use of electronic evidence in forensic proceedings. Traditional legal protections, rules of procedure and ethics rules mitigate these challenges. Application of those traditions better ensures forensic findings are reliable. This has significant consequences where findings may impact a person's liberty or property, a person's life or even the political direction …

Detecting Deception In Asynchronous Text, Fletcher Glancy

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Glancy and Yadav (2010) developed a computational fraud detection model (CFDM) that successfully detected financial reporting fraud in the text of the management’s discussion and analysis (MDA) portion of annual filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This work extends the use of the CFDM to additional genres, demonstrates the generalizability of the CFDM and the use of text mining for quantitatively detecting deception in asynchronous text. It also demonstrates that writers committing fraud use words differently from truth tellers.

Understanding Deleted File Decay On Removable Media Using Differential Analysis, James H. Jones Jr, Anurag Srivastava, Josh Mosier, Connor Anderson, Seth Buenafe

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Digital content created by picture recording devices is often stored internally on the source device, on either embedded or removable media. Such storage media is typically limited in capacity and meant primarily for interim storage of the most recent image files, and these devices are frequently configured to delete older files as necessary to make room for new files. When investigations involve such devices and media, it is sometimes these older deleted files that would be of interest. It is an established fact that deleted file content may persist in part or in its entirety after deletion, and identifying the …

Development Of A Professional Code Of Ethics In Digital Forensics, Kathryn C. Seigfried-Spellar, Marcus Rogers, Danielle M. Crimmins 2184089

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Academics, government officials, and practitioners suggest the field of digital forensics is in need of a professional code of ethics. In response to this need, the authors developed and proposed a professional code of ethics in digital forensics. The current paper will discuss the process of developing the professional code of ethics, which included four sets of revisions based on feedback and suggestions provided by members of the digital forensic community. The final version of the Professional Code of Ethics in Digital Forensics includes eight statements, and we hope this is a step toward unifying the field of digital forensics …

Fast Filtering Of Known Png Files Using Early File Features, Sean Mckeown, Gordon Russell, Petra Leimich

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

A common task in digital forensics investigations is to identify known contraband images. This is typically achieved by calculating a cryptographic digest, using hashing algorithms such as SHA256, for each image on a given media, comparing individual digests with a database of known contraband. However, the large capacities of modern storage media, and increased time pressure on forensics examiners, necessitates that more efficient processing mechanisms be developed. This work describes a technique for creating signatures for images of the PNG format which only requires a tiny fraction of the file to effectively distinguish between a large number of images. Highly …

Detect Kernel-Mode Rootkits Via Real Time Logging & Controlling Memory Access, Satoshi Tanda, Irvin Homem, Igor Korkin

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Modern malware and spyware platforms attack existing antivirus solutions and even Microsoft PatchGuard. To protect users and business systems new technologies developed by Intel and AMD CPUs may be applied. To deal with the new malware we propose monitoring and controlling access to the memory in real time using Intel VT-x with EPT. We have checked this concept by developing MemoryMonRWX, which is a bare-metal hypervisor. MemoryMonRWX is able to track and trap all types of memory access: read, write, and execute. MemoryMonRWX also has the following competitive advantages: fine-grained analysis, support of multi-core CPUs and 64-bit Windows 10. MemoryMonRWX …

Harnessing Predictive Models For Assisting Network Forensic Investigations Of Dns Tunnels, Irvin Homem, Panagiotis Papapetrou

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

In recent times, DNS tunneling techniques have been used for malicious purposes, however network security mechanisms struggle to detect them. Network forensic analysis has been proven effective, but is slow and effort intensive as Network Forensics Analysis Tools struggle to deal with undocumented or new network tunneling techniques. In this paper, we present a machine learning approach, based on feature subsets of network traffic evidence, to aid forensic analysis through automating the inference of protocols carried within DNS tunneling techniques. We explore four network protocols, namely, HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, and POP3. Three features are extracted from the DNS tunneled traffic: …

An Accidental Discovery Of Iot Botnets And A Method For Investigating Them With A Custom Lua Dissector, Max Gannon, Gary Warner, Arsh Arora

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

This paper presents a case study that occurred while observing peer-to-peer network communications on a botnet monitoring station and shares how tools were developed to discover what ultimately was identified as Mirai and many related IoT DDOS Botnets. The paper explains how researchers developed a customized protocol dissector in Wireshark using the Lua coding language, and how this enabled them to quickly identify new DDOS variants over a five month period of study.

Kelihos Botnet: A Never-Ending Saga, Arsh Arora, Max Gannon, Gary Warner

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

This paper investigates the recent behavior of the Kelihos botnet, a spam-sending botnet that accounts for many millions of emails sent each day. The paper demonstrates how a team of students are able to perform a longitudinal malware study, making significant observations and contributions to the understanding of a major botnet using tools and techniques taught in the classroom. From this perspective the paper has two objectives: encouragement and observation. First, by providing insight into the methodology and tools used by student researchers to document and understand a botnet, the paper strives to embolden other academic programs to follow a …

Special Issue Of Best Papers From The 11th International Conference On Systematic Approaches To Digital Forensic Engineering (Sadfe 2016)

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The SADFE series feature the different editions of the International Conference on Systematic Approaches to Digital Forensics Engineering. Now in its eleventh edition, SADFE has established itself as the premier conference for researchers and practitioners working in Systematic Approaches to Digital Forensics Engineering.

SADFE 2016, the eleventh international conference on Systematic Approaches to Digital Forensic Engineering was held in Kyoto, Japan, September 20 - 22, 2016.

Digital forensics engineering and the curation of digital collections in cultural institutions face pressing and overlapping challenges related to provenance, chain of custody, authenticity, integrity, and identity. The generation, analysis and sustainability of digital …

Compression Of Virtual-Machine Memory In Dynamic Malware Analysis, James E. Fowler Ph.D.

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Lossless compression of memory dumps from virtual machines that run malware samples is considered with the goal of significantly reducing archival costs in dynamic-malware-analysis applications. Given that, in such dynamic-analysis scenarios, malware samples are typically run in virtual machines just long enough to activate any self-decryption or other detection- avoidance maneuvers, the virtual-machine memory typically changes little from that of the baseline state, with the difference being attributable in large degree to the loading of additional executables and libraries. Consequently, delta coding is proposed to compress the current virtual-machine memory dump by coding its differences with respect to a predicted …

Front Matter

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Find Me If You Can: Mobile Gps Mapping Applications Forensic Analysis & Snavp The Open Source, Modular, Extensible Parser, Jason Moore, Ibrahim Baggili, Frank Breitinger

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The use of smartphones as navigation devices has become more prevalent. The ubiquity of hand-held navigation devices such as Garmins or Toms Toms has been falling whereas the ownership of smartphones and their adoption as GPS devices is growing. This work provides a comprehensive study of the most popular smartphone mapping applications, namely Google Maps, Apple Maps, Waze, MapQuest, Bing, and Scout, on both Android and iOS. It details what data was found, where it was found, and how it was acquired for each application. Based on the findings, the work allowed for the construction of a tool capable of …

A Forensic Email Analysis Tool Using Dynamic Visualization, Johannes Stadlinger, Andreas Dewald

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Communication between people counts to the most important information of today’s business. As a result, in case of forensic investigations in big companies, analysis of communication data in general and especially email, as the still most widely used business communication platform with an immense and still growing volume, is a typical task in digital forensics. One of the challenges is to identify the relevant communication partners and structures in the suspects surrounding as quickly as possible in order to react appropriately and identify further targets of evaluation. Due to the amount of emails in typical inboxes, reading through all the …

Table Of Contents

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Drop (Drone Open Source Parser) Your Drone: Forensic Analysis Of The Dji Phantom Iii, Devon R. Clark, Christopher S. Meffert, Ibrahim Baggili, Frank Breitinger

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

The DJI Phantom III drone has already been used for malicious activities (to drop bombs, remote surveillance and plane watching) in 2016 and 2017. At the time of writing, DJI was the drone manufacturer with the largest market share. Our work presents the primary thorough forensic analysis of the DJI Phantom III drone, and the primary account for proprietary file structures stored by the examined drone. It also presents the forensically sound open source tool DRone Open source Parser (DROP) that parses proprietary DAT files extracted from the drone's nonvolatile internal storage. These DAT files are encrypted and encoded. The …