Forensic Blogs

An aggregator for digital forensics blogs

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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 Forensics & Cybersecurity.

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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 Forensics & Cybersecurity.

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Exploring Axiom 3.0 and the Child Protection System at MUS 2019

Introduction:

This past April, I had the opportunity to attend the Magnet User Summit 2019 as a representative of Champlain College. This year marked my first year attending a conference in addition to being a first-year student. I couldn’t be more grateful for this opportunity, and I consider myself lucky to have networked with industry professionals and learn from them as an undergraduate student.

Session Review:

Child Exploitation: Collaboration to combat online child sexual exploitation

One of my favorite session from this year’s conference was “Child Exploitation: Collaboration to combat online child sexual exploitation”. Bill Wiltse and Patrick Beaver, two professionals from Child Rescue Coalition, presented the session. Wiltse and Beaver gave a compelling presentation on how people use Magnet Forensics’ new launch of the Axiom 3.0 in collaboration of the release of the new site to help catch sex offenders.

The new site is CPS, also known as Child Protection System. This originally started in 2004, but redone as of 2019. CPS site monitors nine systems that sex offenders frequent and what happens if that they bring all the data back and put in a joint centralized data. It then examines the results and stories it in a document as evidence. On average 20-30 million records go into this database a day. CPS is a centralized database of all the targeted sex offenders in a region. In 2010 it was discovered that this database is so trustworthy, law enforcement officers use it as the sole basis for search warrants, its original purpose.

Axiom comes into play here as it highlights IP addresses using key words linked to child exploitation. This program can detect how many files are on a predator’s computer, the profile make-up of the victims, and intent to distribute or cause physical harm.  

Conclusion:

My biggest takeaway from this session was how useful Axiom is with the centralized database to catch sex offenders. Both professionals highlighted how this database is constantly providing useful information to law enforcement to make decisions about threats.

MUS provided me with opportunities to broaden my understanding of the digital forensic and cybersecurity industries. I also got to connect with others who are just as passionate about these fields as I am. Even more, I was able to explore and experience Nashville with my friends! I’d like to thank Magnet Forensics and Champlain College for affording me the opportunity to attend Magnet User Summit 2019. I can only hope to attend another conference next year!

 

Blog written by Champlain College first year Angel Gallien.

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 Exploring Axiom 3.0 and the Child Protection System at MUS 2019 appeared first on The Leahy Center for Digital Forensics & Cybersecurity.