Defense and Security Studies Commons^™

Hot Zone Identification: Analyzing Effects Of Data Sampling On Spam Clustering, Rasib Khan, Mainul Mizan, Ragib Hasan, Alan Sprague

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Email is the most common and comparatively the most efficient means of exchanging information in today's world. However, given the widespread use of emails in all sectors, they have been the target of spammers since the beginning. Filtering spam emails has now led to critical actions such as forensic activities based on mining spam email. The data mine for spam emails at the University of Alabama at Birmingham is considered to be one of the most prominent resources for mining and identifying spam sources. It is a widely researched repository used by researchers from different global organizations. The usual process …

Investigative Techniques Of N-Way Vendor Agreement And Network Analysis Demonstrated With Fake Antivirus, Gary Warner, Mike Nagy, Kyle Jones, Kevin Mitchem

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Fake AntiVirus (FakeAV) malware experienced a resurgence in the fall of 2013 after falling out of favor after several high profile arrests. FakeAV presents two unique challenges to investigators. First, because each criminal organization running a FakeAV affiliate system regularly alters the appearance of their system, it is sometimes difficult to know whether an incoming criminal complaint or malware sample is related to one ring or the other. Secondly, because FakeAV is delivered in a “Pay Per Install” affiliate model, in addition to the ring-leaders of each major ring, there are many high-volume malware infection rings who are all using …

Work In Progress: An Architecture For Network Path Reconstruction Via Backtraced Ospf Lsdb Synchronization, Raymond A. Hansen

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

There has been extensive work in crime scene reconstruction of physical locations, and much is known in terms of digital forensics of computing devices. However, the network has remained a nebulous combination of entities that are largely ignored during an investigation due to the transient nature of the data that flows through the networks. This paper introduces an architecture for network path reconstruction using the network layer reachability information shared via OSPF Link State Advertisements and the routines and functions of OSPF::rt_sched() as applied to the construction of identical Link State Databases for all routers within an Area.

Application Of Toral Automorphisms To Preserve Confidentiality Principle In Video Live Streaming, Enrique García-Carbajal, Clara Cruz-Ramos, Mariko Nakano-Miyatake

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Most of the Live Video Systems do not preserve the Confidentiality principle, and send all frames of the video without any protection, allowing an easy “man in the middle” attack. But when it does, it uses cryptographic techniques over streaming data or makes use of secure channel systems. This generates low frame rate and demands many processor resources. In fact native Live Video Streaming demands many resources of all System.

In this paper we propose a technique to preserve confidentiality in Video Live Streaming applying a confusing visual method making use of the Toral Automorphism Spatial Transformation over each frame. …

Visualizing Instant Messaging Author Writeprints For Forensic Analysis, Angela Orebaugh, Jason Kinser, Jeremy Allnutt

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

As cybercrime continues to increase, new cyber forensics techniques are needed to combat the constant challenge of Internet anonymity. In instant messaging (IM) communications, criminals use virtual identities to hide their true identity, which hinders social accountability and facilitates cybercrime. Current instant messaging products are not addressing the anonymity and ease of impersonation over instant messaging. It is necessary to have IM cyber forensics techniques to assist in identifying cyber criminals as part of the criminal investigation. Instant messaging behavioral biometrics include online writing habits, which may be used to create an author writeprint to assist in identifying an author …

Botnet Forensic Investigation Techniques And Cost Evaluation, Brian Cusack

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Botnets are responsible for a large percentage of damages and criminal activity on the Internet. They have shifted attacks from push activities to pull techniques for the distribution of malwares and continue to provide economic advantages to the exploiters at the expense of other legitimate Internet service users. In our research we asked; what is the cost of the procedural steps for forensically investigating a Botnet attack? The research method applies investigation guidelines provided by other researchers and evaluates these guidelines in terms of the cost to a digital forensic investigator. We conclude that investigation of Botnet attacks is both …

Development And Dissemination Of A New Multidisciplinary Undergraduate Curriculum In Digital Forensics, Masooda Bashir, Jenny A. Applequist, Roy H. Campbell, Lizanne Destefano, Gabriela L. Garcia, Anthony Lang

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The Information Trust Institute (ITI) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is developing an entirely new multidisciplinary undergraduate curriculum on the topic of digital forensics, and this paper presents the findings of the development process, including initial results and evaluation of a pilot offering of the coursework to students. The curriculum consists of a four-course sequence, including introductory and advanced lecture courses with parallel laboratory courses, followed by an advanced course. The content has been designed to reflect both the emerging national standards and the strong multidisciplinary character of the profession of digital forensics, and includes modules developed collaboratively …

Computer Forensics For Accountants, Grover S. Kearns

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Digital attacks on organizations are becoming more common and more sophisticated. Firms are interested in providing data security and having an effective means to respond to attacks. Accountants possess important investigative and analytical skills that serve to uncover fraud in forensic investigations. Some accounting students take courses in forensic accounting but few colleges offer a course in computer forensics for accountants. Educators wishing to develop such a course may find developing the curriculum daunting. A major element of such a course is the use of forensic software. This paper argues the importance of computer forensics to accounting students and offers …

Applying Memory Forensics To Rootkit Detection, Igor Korkin, Ivan Nesterov

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Volatile memory dump and its analysis is an essential part of digital forensics. Among a number of various software and hardware approaches for memory dumping there are authors who point out that some of these approaches are not resilient to various anti-forensic techniques, and others that require a reboot or are highly platform dependent. New resilient tools have certain disadvantages such as low speed or vulnerability to rootkits which directly manipulate kernel structures, e.g., page tables. A new memory forensic system – Malware Analysis System for Hidden Knotty Anomalies (MASHKA) is described in this paper. It is resilient to popular …

The Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure: Politics In The 2013-2014 Revision, John W. Bagby, Byron Granda, Emily Benoit, Alexander Logan, Ryan Snell, Joseph J. Schwerha

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Pre-trial discovery is perpetually controversial. Parties advantaged by strict privacy can often avoid justice when this is disadvantageous to their interests. Contrawise, parties advantaged by relaxed litigation privacy can achieve justice when all facts are accessible irrespective of their repositories, ownership or control. American-style pre-trial discovery in civil and regulatory enforcement is relatively rare around the world. U.S. discovery rules open nearly all relevant and non-privileged data for use by opposing parties. The traditional discovery process was costly and time consuming in the world of tangible paper data. However, these burdens have increased, rather than diminished as often predicted, as …

Testing And Evaluating The Harmonised Digital Forensic Investigation Process In Post Mortem Digital Investigation, Emilio R. Mumba, H. S. Venter

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Existing digital forensic investigation process models have provided guidelines for identifying and preserving potential digital evidence captured from a crime scene. However, for any of the digital forensic investigation process models developed across the world to be adopted and fully applied by the scientific community, it has to be tested. For this reason, the Harmonized Digital Forensic Investigation Process (HDFIP) model, currently a working draft towards becoming an international standard for digital forensic investigations (ISO/IEC 27043), needs to be tested.

This paper, therefore, presents the findings of a case study used to test the HDFIP model implemented in the ISO/IEC …

Generation And Handling Of Hard Drive Duplicates As Piece Of Evidence, T. Kemmerich, F. Junge, N. Kuntze, C. Rudolph, B. Endicott-Popovsky, L. Großkopf

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

An important area in digital forensics is images of hard disks. The correct production of the images as well as the integrity and authenticity of each hard disk image is essential for the probative force of the image to be used at court. Integrity and authenticity are under suspicion as digital evidence is stored and used by software based systems. Modifications to digital objects are hard or even impossible to track and can occur even accidentally. Even worse, vulnerabilities occur for all current computing systems. Therefore, it is difficult to guarantee a secure environment for forensic investigations. But intended deletions …

Internet Addiction To Child Pornography, Rachel Sitarz, Marcus Rogers, Lonnie Bentley, Eugene Jackson

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

During the present age and time, it seems as though people in society have become addicted to nearly anything and everything, whether it be to a substance, an activity or an object. The Internet and pornography is no exception. While commonly thought of as a deviant behavior, many are displaying addictions towards the Internet and pornography. More alarming, however, are those who are viewing, downloading, or trading child pornography and displaying addictive Internet behaviors, for they are spending excessive amounts of time engaging in the proliferation of child pornographic materials. For this reason, addiction to the Internet and usage of …

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

Annual ADFSL Conference on 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; …

Life (Logical Iosforensics Examiner): An Open Source Iosbackup Forensics Examination Tool, Ibrahim Baggili, Shadi Al Awawdeh, Jason Moore

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

In this paper, we present LiFE (Logical iOS Forensics Examiner), an open source iOS backup forensics examination tool. This tool helps both researchers and practitioners alike in both understanding the backup structures of iOS devices and forensically examining iOS backups. The tool is currently capable of parsing device information, call history, voice messages, GPS locations, conversations, notes, images, address books, calendar entries, SMS messages, Aux locations, facebook data and e-mails. The tool consists of both a manual interface (where the user is able to manually examine the backup structures) and an automated examination interface (where the tool pulls out evidence …

Why Penetration Testing Is A Limited Use Choice For Sound Cyber Security Practice, Craig Valli, Andrew Woodward, Peter Hannay, Mike Johnstone

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Penetration testing of networks is a process that is overused when demonstrating or evaluating the cyber security posture of an organisation. Most penetration testing is not aligned with the actual intent of the testing, but rather is driven by a management directive of wanting to be seen to be addressing the issue of cyber security. The use of penetration testing is commonly a reaction to an adverse audit outcome or as a result of being penetrated in the first place. Penetration testing used in this fashion delivers little or no value to the organisation being tested for a number of …

Awareness Of Scam E-Mails: An Exploratory Research Study, Tejashree D. Datar, Kelly A. Cole, Marcus K. Rogers

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The goal of this research was to find the factors that influence a user’s ability to identify e-mail scams. It also aimed to understand user’s awareness regarding e-mail scams and actions that need to be taken if and when victimized. This study was conducted on a university campus with 163 participants. This study presented the participants with two scam e-mails and two legitimate e-mails and asked the participants to correctly identify these e-mails as scam or legitimate. The study focused on the ability of people to differentiate between scam and legitimate e-mails. The study attempted to determine factors that influence …

Issue Brief: Saving By Mitigating, University Of Louisville, New England Environmental Finance Center

Sustainable Communities Capacity Building

Natural disasters can cause loss of life, inflict damage to buildings and infrastructure, and have devastating consequences for a community’s economic, social, and environmental well-being. Hazard mitigation means reducing damages from disasters.

Local governments have the responsibility to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their citizens. Proactive mitigation policies and actions help reduce risk and create safer, more disaster-resilient communities. Mitigation is an investment in your community’s future safety, equity, and sustainability.

More Effective Human Spaceflight Programs And Their International Security Implications, Bert Chapman, Sarag J. Saikia

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

NASA can more effectively perform its missions by transferring its aeronautic responsibilities to the Federal Aviation Administration and be renamed the National Space Agency. The U.S. must also recognize that space is an emerging arena of international competition and conflict and militarily protect its space assets from China which seeks to use space to restrict the U.S.' ability to defend its strategic interests in regions such as the Western Pacific.

An Epistemological Inquiry Into The Incorporation Of Emergency Management Concept In The Homeland Security With A Post-Disaster Security Centric Focus, Mehmet Secilmis

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The historical roots of the Emergency Management concept in the U.S. date back to 19th century. As disasters occurred, policies relating to disaster response have been developed, and many statuary provisions, including several Federal Disaster Relief Acts, conceptually established the framework of Emergency Management. In 1979, with the foundation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), disaster relief efforts were finally institutionalized, and the federal government acknowledged that Emergency Management included mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery activities as abbreviated 'MPRR.'

However, after 2000, the U.S. experienced two milestone events - the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001 and Hurricane Katrina …

Towards Managing And Understanding The Risk Of Underwater Terrorism, Richard J. Gay

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation proposes a methodology to manage and understand the risk of underwater terrorism to critical infrastructures utilizing the parameters of the risk equation. Current methods frequently rely on statistical methods, which suffer from a lack of appropriate historical data to produce distributions and do not integrate epistemic uncertainty. Other methods rely on locating subject matter experts who can provide judgment and then undertaking an associated validation of these judgments.

Using experimentation, data from unclassified successful, or near successful, underwater attacks are analyzed and instantiated as a network graph with the key characteristics of the risk of terrorism represented as …

Risk Quadruplet: Integrating Assessments Of Threat, Vulnerability, Consequence, And Perception For Homeland Security And Homeland Defense, Kara Norman Hill

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Risk for homeland security and homeland defense is often considered to be a function of threat, vulnerability, and consequence. But what is that function? And are we defining and measuring these terms consistently? Threat, vulnerability, and consequence assessments are conducted, often separately, and data from one assessment could be drastically different from that of another due to inconsistent definitions of terms and measurements, differing data collection methods, or varying data sources. It has also long been a challenge to integrate these three disparate assessments to establish an overall picture of risk to a given asset. Further, many agencies conduct these …

The Name Game As Blame Game: The Domodedovo Terrorist Bombing, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

The author discusses the relevance of blame in the context of terrorism.

Delayed-Bang Approach Towards More Sustainable Critical Infrastructure Risk Management, C. Ariel Pinto, Michael K. Mcshane, Abhishek S. Pathak

Finance Faculty Publications

This article describes the Delayed Bang Approach for determining the value of risk management alternatives in critical infrastructure security. The discussion includes (1) the need for sustainable risk management (2) the importance of time valuation in evaluating competing loss prevention and loss reduction alternatives, (3) the convergence of deterministic engineering economics, survivability analysis, and probabilistic analysis, and (4) hypothetical examples of the Delayed-Bang Approach and significance towards more sustainable risk management.

The Yemen Narrative: Cargo Cults And Cargo Security, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

The author gives a psychological perspective on the security of aviation cargo shipments.

Cybersecurity: Growing Like Topsy!, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article discusses cybersecurity in an intelligence context – what it is, what it does to us, and the sudden (and somewhat unplanned) increase in financial support for the area.

Comparing Discrete Simulation And System Dynamics: Modeling An Anti-Insurgency Influence Operation, Wayne Wakeland, Una E. Medina

Complex Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper contrasts the tradeoffs of modeling the same dynamic problem at a micro scale and at a macro scale of analysis: discrete system simulation (DS) versus continuous system simulation or system dynamics (SD). Both are employed to model the influence of entertainment education on terrorist system decay, with implications for field application. Each method optimizes different design, scope/scale, data availability/accuracy, parameter settings, and system sensitivities. Whether the research served by the computer model is applied or theoretical, DS tends to be useful for understand low-level individual unit/step influences on system change over time, whereas SD tends to shine when …

Spot Off: The Gao Takes On The Tsa’S Behavior Detection Program, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) has recently Issued Efforts to Validate TSA’s Passenger Screening Behavior Detection Program Underway, but Opportunities Exist to Strengthen Validation and Address Operational Problems (May 2010, GAO-10-763). This IBPP article will describe and comment on the main GAO findings and additional data on which the findings are based. The article will end with some basic challenges to behavior detection as a useful security measure.

Challenges For Human, Social, Cultural, And Behavioral Modeling, S. K. Numrich, Andreas Tolk

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Faculty Publications

Today's military focus has moved away from the force-on-force battlefield of the past century and into the domain of irregular warfare and its companion security, stability, transition and reconstruction missions. With that change in focus has come a need to examine the operational environment from a wider perspective, one that includes the whole range of human experiences and circumstances. As the set of factors and list of players expands, the need for reliable modeling and simulation increases, if for no other reason than to help the human decision maker make sense of this expanded decision space. However, to do this, …

A Military Surge In Afghanistan -- Modeling A Focused Security Effort, Brent David Morrow

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

In October of 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan and ousted the Taliban government. Since their overthrow, the Taliban has pieced together and waged an insurgency to retake Afghanistan. That insurgency has gained momentum and grown in strength while the United States NA TO counterinsurgency effort has decreased in size to about 55,000 troops in 2007. Many factors contribute to the insurgency inside of Afghanistan, from ethnic to economic factors to the failure of the central government. This research used a study of the current state of affairs in Afghanistan and agent-based modeling to determine whether a military troop surge …