Forensic Blogs

An aggregator for digital forensics blogs

October 18, 2019 by LCDI

Intrusion Into the Internet of Things

Shelves lined with devices in the Internet of Things, all potential subjects of intrusion.

Welcome to the Internet of Things Intrusion team’s first blog. The Internet of Things—or IoT for short—is a fancy term for the interconnected devices that make up our world. Many consumers know these devices as “smart” devices. For example, your smartphone can connect to your smart fridge to let you know when you’re, say, out of Hood Simply Smart Milk.

The Internet of Things connects all elements of the user’s life. This connectivity comes at a cost, however; more often than not, security is an afterthought to functionality in these devices. In our modern age of frequent, high level hacking, these devices make easy targets for even a small time hacker. This project will be focusing on these flaws, looking at common IoT devices from the perspective of anyone with a couple of hours, an internet connection, and malicious intent.

The Intrusion Begins

Like every project here at the LCDI, we spent the majority of our first month researching. We began by looking into a bunch of different IoT devices, like the Google Home, Amazon Echo, Nest Protect, and Ring Video Doorbell. With many IoT devices available to us at the Leahy Center, we limited our preliminary research to a few devices, split into two categories: popular devices and devices with known flaws. Picking devices that are easy to break into serves as a good way to understand the process, while using the most popular devices will allow us to understand the weaknesses that put the most people at risk. After we put together our list, we decided to begin work with our first device: the TPLink Kasa Cam.

Our First Intrusion

Photo of live footage taken from TPLink Camera once set up

Partly due to our inexperience in IoT intrusion, the feat of breaking into the TPLink camera proved quite formidable. We found our first obstacle when connecting the camera to a network for setup. It took us a week to get a proper test network that we could connect it to. That week, however, was not wasted; we used the time to research our target in greater depth, including different ways to break into it.

After getting our test network up and running, we were able to set up the TPLink without issue; very user friendly! After set up was complete, we were ready to attempt to break in to the camera. This is where we hit a snag. To get access to the camera, you first need to connect to the camera’s IP address. We tried many different methods to get the IP address of the TPLink camera, including a Wireshark capture, googling for default IP’s, and searching through device settings, but no luck. On top of this, TPLink’s website is very unclear about how to find this information. That said, the month isn’t over, so we will use the rest of the time we have to keep trying. 

Conclusion

We have gained a lot of knowledge on IoT vulnerability in our first month here. Our plan for next month is to continue onto new devices. The information we learned from our first trial has helped us create a simple, efficient approach to each device. For each device, we will begin with research into both the device itself and ways to break in. From there, we will create an account to use with the device, set it up, and generate data. This data will vary based on the device—the data generated on an IP camera will be different than the data generated on a smart smoke alarm. Finally, we will attempt to put our intrusion methods into action and see if they work. Make sure to read our team’s next blog to stay up to date on the project!

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 Intrusion Into the Internet of Things appeared first on The Leahy Center for Digital Forensics & Cybersecurity.

Read the original at: The Leahy Center for Digital Forensics & CybersecurityFiled Under: Digital Forensics, Uncategorized Tagged With: Apps, Blog Post, bluetooth, Bluetooth Security, Champlain College, Internet of Things, Mobile, Projects, Senator Leahy Center for Digital Investigation, smartphones, Student Work, Students

September 28, 2018 by LCDI

Smartphones: The Nexus of Evidentiary Data from Social Media to IoT

Introduction

As a first year cybersecurity student, my application to the OpenText Enfuse conference felt like a long shot. Additionally, seeing how I am a cybersecurity major and the conference is mainly focused on digital forensics, I wasn’t sure how much of the content I would be able to understand. Despite this, I was selected and feel that I learned a significant amount of new information. The session that was most informative to me was “Smartphones: The Nexus of Evidentiary Data from Social Media to IoT” given by Amber Schroader.

 

 

Amber Schroader

Smartphones and Social Media

Amber Schroader is the President, CEO and Founder of the Parabon Corporation, a leading company in the field of forensics for mobile devices, smartphones, computers, email, gaming systems ,and the cloud. Despite her vast experience in a variety of forensic technology, her Enfuse talk focused solely on smartphones. She began the session by laying out three topics she intended to cover. The first: the hurdles of smartphone forensics. The second: the location of valuable data. The third: how smartphones interact with IoT Her presentation was engaging, at times humorous, and heavily aided by actual data she took from her children’s phones. This included logs of Tinder conversations and other text messaging apps. All in all, for a talk on a somewhat complex process, I felt I was able to understand most of the information despite my lack of experience.

 

Conclusion

Enfuse was a great experience for me. I was able to meet and network with many industry professionals and I believe I learned a significant amount and gained a better understanding of what digital forensics really is.

To learn more about the LCDI take a look at our Facebook or Twitter pages or send an email to lcdi@champlain.edu.

 

The post Smartphones: The Nexus of Evidentiary Data from Social Media to IoT appeared first on The Leahy Center for Digital Investigation.

Read the original at: The Leahy Center for Digital InvestigationFiled Under: Digital Forensics, Uncategorized Tagged With: Blog Post, Champlain College, Digital forensics, EnFuse, Mobile, Mobile App Forensics, Opentext, smartphones, social media

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