Forensic Blogs

An aggregator for digital forensics blogs

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Internet of Things at Magnet User Summit 2019

INTRODUCTION

During the first week of April, I had the privilege of attending the Magnet User Summit in Nashville, Tennessee. Previously held as a separate training right before or after EnFuse in Las Vegas, the Magnet User Summit is a two day conference put on by Magnet Forensics. It features talks and hands on labs covering a wide gamut of topics within the field of digital forensics. I’m grateful for the chance to attend as the keynotes and lecture sessions were all enjoyable. I learned so much about the field of digital forensics directly from industry professionals.

INTERNET OF THINGS FORENSICS

One of the favorite sessions I attended was actually my first session, which was “Internet of Things Forensics”, presented by Jon Rajewski, the director of the LCDI. During the roughly hour long talk, Jon talked about a number of popular Internet of Things (IoT) devices, including the Amazon Echo, Facebook Portal, and the Nest suite of smart home devices. Jon went into detail about each of the devices and his findings about them as a forensic investigator.

One of the more intriguing products Jon discussed was the Facebook Portal.  Jon found that the Facebook Portal ran Android and accessed Facebook via a web portal rather than an application like on our phones. He went into detail about several IoT devices and showed the findings from the LCDI. The culmination of this work is an IoT artifact reference which they’ll release for open use. Through attending Jon’s talk, I learned a lot about the inner workings of IoT devices and their true security.

CONCLUSION

As the Magnet User Summit drew to a close, it was bit bittersweet to leave. Besides the fact that Nashville neared 75 degrees unlike Burlington, I had an incredible opportunity to learn. I gained more knowledge about digital forensics and networked with industry professionals! I am incredibly thankful to Champlain College, the LCDI, and Magnet Forensics for the opportunity to attend this year’s summit. Hopefully I’m able to attend another conference next year!

 

Blog written by Champlain College‘s Jackson Wajer.

Be sure to check us out on Twitter @ChampForensics, Instagram @ChampForensics, and Facebook @Champlainforensics to see other important information pertaining to our project!

The post Internet of Things at Magnet User Summit 2019 appeared first on The Leahy Center for Digital Investigation.

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Magnet User Summit 2019: Solving Cyber Crimes with the University of Notre Dame

Mitch Kajzer presented this talk at the Magnet User Summit. He is the director of the Cyber Crimes Unit in St. Joseph County, Indiana, and also an adjunct professor at Notre Dame. He talked about the changing nature of digital forensic investigations and how police agencies need to adapt. Technology is now involved in most crimes because each person has an average of 4.3 internet-connect devices. Typically major cases get forensic attention which prevents some digital forensics exams from happening. If they do, some have backlogs and wait times of months to years. The solution in St. Joseph County was to enlist the help of college students.

Partnering with the University of Notre Dame

Mitch talked about the partnership that the Cyber Crimes Unit has with the University of Notre Dame. They have a paid internship where students of any major train and receive background education in digital forensics and get to work in the Cyber Crimes Unit.

All students are sworn police investigators who work on the same cases officers work on. They provide analysis on digital devices, write search warrants, execute them, and even appear in court. Students are involved in 95% of the cases in the department, are primary investigators in about a third of these cases, and conduct 65% of all digital examinations. Mitch said that the students leverage AXIOM a lot for their investigations, and helps to create portable cases to show the digital analysis results to the officer/detective assigned to the case.

Since starting, St. Joseph County’s Cyber Crime Unit has gone from a turnaround of fourteen days and a backlog of thirty cases, to now having a turnaround of only four hours and no backlog at all. Students are having a direct impact on the digital investigations, and are solving cases by themselves. In addition, most of the intern workforce has been women, which is awesome for getting more women into this field. I asked Mitch at the end of the presentation whether or not there was a legal implication for all this. Does the evidence students find hold up in court? He told me there have been no implications because of the extensive training and certification all interns receive.

Conclusion

I think this model is really amazing and can clearly change the way digital investigations are done within police departments. I hope the country catches on to what incredible work is coming from the partnership between Notre Dame and St. Joseph County’s Cyber Crime Unit. I also think it would be interesting to see this model implemented in Burlington itself with Champlain students, especially those working at the Leahy Center for Digital Investigation (LCDI). The LCDI already does investigative work, but I think that if there was a partnership with the Burlington Police Department, it would help students gain real-life experience while helping out the local community.

 

Blog written by Champlain College fi-year Madi Brumbelow.

Be sure to check us out on Twitter @ChampForensics, Instagram @ChampForensics, and Facebook @Champlainforensics to see other important information pertaining to our project!

The post Magnet User Summit 2019: Solving Cyber Crimes with the University of Notre Dame appeared first on The Leahy Center for Digital Investigation.

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Virtual Currency Investigations: Fear Not the Blockchains

At the Magnet User Summit this year, I listened to a presentation by Eric Huber, Vice President of National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C). With a broad background in digital forensic investigations, he spoke about the changing field in cryptocurrencies and blockchain analysis. He gave a brief overview on different types of cryptocurrencies and how to use them. Then he dove into how cryptocurrencies are evolving and how digital forensics needs to catch up to the changes.

Cryptocurrencies

Cryptocurrencies are a little bit more complicated than just currencies that solely run on the internet or through the cyberspace. Currencies like Ethereum and Bitcoin are purchased and are traded in cyberspace to purchase goods and services just like fiscal currencies, but because of the push back against government control, these currencies can be used to purchase illegal goods and services without being tracked easily. Cryptocurrencies are on the rise and are becoming more popular than ever. With ATMS popping up all over the world, they are becoming even more accessible.

Blockchains

Blockchains are the ledgers of cryptocurrencies. Unlike most banks and budgets, blockchains never list the total cryptocurrency that someone might have. Instead, they list who exchanged it and how much. Cryptocurrency mining is figuring out the hashes or the specific string of characters and numbers to figure out the transaction and post it directly on the ledger. After claiming that position, not only would the miner claim some cryptocurrency, but every time that section of the ledger is referenced to calculate how much an individual has of that cryptocurrency, the miner earns more cryptocurrency.

Public vs Private

Different types of cryptocurrencies have different types of blockchains. The public can openly access public blockchains, like what Ethereum and Bitcoin. Law enforcement can also subpoena them to learn who performed the possibly illegal transaction. However, there can always be more privacy. The more privacy achieved, the more complicated arresting and subpoenas become. Private blockchains involve each individual block becoming private and not available to the public. Not only is the ledger inaccessible, but law enforcement is unable to subpoena individual miners. They would only have parts of the ledger anyways.

With a developing field, digital forensics and incident response is developing blockchain analysis to track backwards after figuring out specific blocks of ledgers to figure out the specifics of transactions and more. This is the changing part of cryptocurrencies and how digital forensics needs to evolve to adapt to accommodate these changes since cryptocurrencies are not fading away anytime soon.

 

Blog written by Champlain College’s Nurit Elber.

Be sure to check us out on Twitter @ChampForensics, Instagram @ChampForensics, and Facebook @Champlainforensics to see other important information pertaining to our project!

The post Virtual Currency Investigations: Fear Not the Blockchains appeared first on The Leahy Center for Digital Investigation.