Digital Evidence for Computer Forensics - Case Study Example

?Digital evidence for computer forensics Number Content related crime. Overview Content related crime is computer crime that targets to corrupt the mind of the victim. The most common is child pornography. This is directed at sexually abusing the child. The scenario whereby somebody view, posses or produce and distribute copies of obscene images is a very sensitive thing that is considered a crime. When pornographic materials are found in somebody’s computer, it is considered as a crime and is punishable by law. The perpetrators can be the staff in the companies or even the student. When it comes to ethical issues, somebody or the culprit may want to run away from the issue saying that he or she has not committed any offence since no child has gotten access to the material. As per the joint act, a child in this case is somebody who is blow the age of 18 years while child pornography is any form of material that shows or that depict a child doing something that is related to sex. It includes exposure of a child’s private parts such as the genitals or the pubic areas. In addition, an adult disguised to be a child involving himself or she in a sexual conduct is also considered a crime. Digital images of a real child or a fictitious child engaging the same conduct is also considered a crime Case study In 2007, there was a case in high court in United States concerning a university student who was distributing phonographic material within and outside the campus. In the case the student was charged with possessing materials that can be harmful to the children or even an adult who is not pleased with the content of the material. According to the joint act, a child in this case is somebody who is blow the age of 18 years while child pornography is any form of material that shows or that depict a child doing something that is related to sex. It includes exposure of a child’s private parts such as the genitals or the pubic areas. In addition, an adult disguised to be a child involving himself or she in a sexual conduct is also considered a crime. Digital images of a real child or a fictitious child engaging the same conduct is also considered a crime. Source: National Juvenile Online Victimization Study http://www.missingkids.com/en_US/publications/NC144.pdf Ethical issue The ability of an individual to navigate within the web pages and the links that are related to a website give him a chance to fully follow you. Underlying this belief is the perception that virtual crimes are actions in cyberspace, with its shared virtual community and virtual citizens, and consisting of a mixture of real identities, alter egos, clones and even virtual beings. Hence, it is fundamentally different from crimes committed in the physical world. As such, the application and standards of criminal laws for the virtual community should be markedly different from those commonly applied in the courts of the physical world. Though their views appear futuristic and far-fetched at this point in time, the potential for its full or partial adoption may be foreseeable. Already, there are serious talks of the creation of cyber-courts to administer and dispense cyber-justice, which may entail punishments that are unique to the medium and that may not have a real world equivalent (Rittinghouse 2009) Investigation technique Finding substantial evidence was quite cumbersome because the internet use provides to the person who has the intention to stalk. The agencies that enforce laws need to review the law in order for them to come up with new tools and mechanism to combat this crime. The more pressing and disturbing idea is that the person committing these crimes has the resource for example the skills and expertise on the internet use and he or she is determinant to frustrate or rather humiliate the victims. Research has shown that such perpetrators can decide to do so because of vengeance. Research has shown that stalkers are more experience in terms of age education and professional background. The gender also has weight in this act because the study that was carried out in France showed that male is mostly the predators while the female are prey. In general the major factor that that makes the process of investigating and prosecuting cyber stalkers is the educational and social status plus economic ability (Rosenberg 2006) Legislation issue Often the case that cyber crimes are considered adequately dealt with under existing legislation albeit with some necessary modifications in their language and terms, particularly relating to their scope of application as determined by their definition and interpretation. Cyber crime will be taken to mean offences committed via the computer cyber crimes are a sub-set of the general term “crime” and the only difference is the use of the computer as the facilitative device and the use of electronic media as another means to commit a ‘traditional’ offence. On the other hand, computer crimes, as we have seen, are non-traditional crimes that arose directly from the advent of the age of personal computing for managing information and communication, and that do not exist separately from its existence. Evidence presented In this case the materials that were produced as evidence was obtained from the suspect’s laptop and also the copies which were in CDs and memory sticks. The evidence material that was presented in court showed that the material that was distributed b the suspect involved adults. Basing on the argument of the suspect, he had not committed any content related crime because of two reasons. One was that the there was nothing to prove that the materials that were presented in court was extracted from his computer and two the content of the material didn’t have any real or fictitious child participating. The suspect was released because the judge didn’t find enough evidence to incriminate him. In the real sense the culprit was guilty since the distributed materials can be watched by children and will still cause the same effect. As such, the applying professional ethics in computer field is very essential and that can be the only remedy to this problem. This is because this is because the act gives a totally different challenge to evidence that the investigators provide and hence seemingly can prove to sabotage the struggle to combat the problem. The frustrated process determining valid evidence makes the work of investigators difficult. 2. Online stalking & abuse Overview This basically involves behaviors that are harassing or threatening to someone and are committed by the culprit several times and can be a series. It is a pattern of habit that the intruder intends to get or frustrate a victim. The new technologies have given this crime an avenue to cause malicious or harm to the affected person. It is the combination of stalking and cyberspace that gave rise to cyber stalking a big challenge to the remedies of controlling these vice. Prevention, detection and prosecution of cyber stalking are restrained by the fact that it changes according to the change in technology. Internets being the target for the culprit to interact with the prey by controlling, exploiting and harassing have a varied range of scope. Case study In the court of appeals of the state of new Mexico, a case involving two staff member in a company, the perpetrator was an IT specialist while the victim was a public relation personnel. In the case the complainant said that the suspect was posting her images in the social network without her consent. In addition, the culprit was monitoring all that she does in the interment include reading of private mails and making some comments which caused her to be sacked. Source: www.nmcompcomm.us Ethical issue According to the computer ethics and code of conduct, any computer user should ensure that the activities that he or she carries out using the computer and other computer related resource like internet should not cause any harm to other person. What the IT specialist did was very wrong because he used his knowledge and skills to embarrass his fellow worker. There is an ethical framework that guides any specialist that carries out a forensic investigation. Ethic is basically the how somebody behaves towards a particular task or thing. It is all about what you feel it is good and right when you are handling a particular activity. Investigation technique The cases that involve cyber stalking are very challenging to the law enforcement because the sequence related to this type of crime are unclear, diverse, and sudden and cannot be realized easily. In addition, the investigation assessment and measures are hard. Another contributing factor is the disguise that the internet use provides to the person who has the intention to stalk. Legislation issue After thorough investigation, it was realized that the two had their own personal difference and the culprit decided to take advantage of the weakness in the law in regards to prosecution of computer related cases to revenge to her by embarrassing her using the technology Evidence presented The evidence that were presented was those obtained from the sale personnel computer. The information that was posted to hurt and embarrass the lady was derived from the differences that they had. Surprisingly, the identification details of the person who were committing this crime completely had nothing to do with the person who was suspected. After a thorough investigation, the investigator realized that the culprit disguised himself by using different email account and all the identification details. 3. Identity theft & financial fraud Overview Identity theft and financial fraud are cebyrcrimes which are the attacker gains access to computer data and information by pretenting to be the ideal user. An example is a crime that affects the system users who gives commonly known username and password as default credential is unauthorized access via default credential. A good example of this is where the system administrator in an institution put the name of the college as both username and password. This is very vulnerable to attackers because they capitalized the idea of using the default credentials that are related to the institution such as setting the password of accessing the wireless network of Aberdeen College as aberdeencollege. Anyone who knows come within the coverage and has the intention of cracking this password can succeed. To avoid this, the default credential should be unique as in; it should not be related to the name of the institution or the company Another example is where an employee in a bank steal his fellow employee’s username and password then use it to access the system then make fund transfer. The owner of that credentials will suffer without knowing the culprit since this attack also originate from inside the organization and hence difficult to detect. Another attack that is very dangerous is where somebody’s credential are stolen and used to gain unauthorized access to the system by pretending to be the owner of those credential details. An example is where robbers takes the visa card of and individual and demands for the credential. They will then use this to withdraw cash from the ATM machines Case study Paul Buonopane and his brother, Robert Buonopane, were charged with conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud and aiding and abetting in the preparation and presentation of false returns. Paul and Robert Buonopane owned B & B Acoustical Contractors, Inc., a construction contracting company in Woburn, Massachusetts. The Buonopanes conducted a concealed payroll scheme in order to defraud the IRS, workers' compensation insurance carriers and the Massachusetts Carpenters' Union. The Buonopanes were convicted of 29 counts on February 16, 2001, after a six-week jury trial. They were sentenced to 12 months' incarceration and 24 months' supervised release. Source Ethical issue The ethics governing the use of password and username to log into the system states clearly that somebody’s credential should be a secret. One is not suppose to share it with somebody else. This is because it is not easy to differentiate whether the person who owns the credential colluded with the offender. Investigation technique This kind of attack is mostly executed by the employees in a company in and intention of vengeance or sabotage. Detecting such issue is cumbersome since the intrusion will be taking place internally and hence task tracking may be a challenge. The employees use his or her right to access the system to make alteration and modification of data with the intension of financial gains for example in an employee in the IT department of a water providing company can reduce the consumption figures of some specific accounts then liaise with the holders of those accounts for payment. Legislation issue Detecting such issue is cumbersome since the intrusion will be taking place internally and hence task tracking may be a challenge. This is very vulnerable to attackers because they capitalized the idea of using the default credentials that are related to the institution such as setting the password of accessing the wireless network of college. Anyone who knows come within the coverage and has the intention of cracking this password can succeed Evidence presented The evidence presented was tha fact that the person resigned and it also happen that the account which the money was send to has an affiliation with that person. The evidence showed that the person who did the crime was the datdbase administrator who has the right to view other peoples credentials. 4. Hacking & unlawful computer use Overview This offence is committed when somebody who has limited rights proceeds and perform an action that is not authorised. Some attacker uses authentication bypass methods where he or she can get access to the system without having to enter the credentials in order to authenticate him/her. This can be through a different IP address that routes the attacker via other links until he get access to the same system. The other attack is the violation of acceptable system user policies. In some companies, the system once logged in by the user will remain on till logged out. A user can negligently abandon the system while logged in and go out, this can give an opportunity to unauthorized person to access the system and facilitate any harmful event like altering the data with the intention of causing an embarrassment to the company or the owner. An example of this is where somebody forgets to log from his email account and another person comes and send abusive or vulgar mails to some group of people. This can be detriment to the user’s attribute because everybody believes that the message comes from the rightful owner of the account (Salomon 2007) Case study A junior employee was taken to court in an institution in Australia for hacking the exam result system and changing the exam grades of some students. The employee was further accused for obtaining money fraudulently from the students Source2005 Case Law Update http://www.unlawful-computer-court-case-doc.html Ethical issue The ethical issue that a company the company need to put in place concerning how one makes use of computer. Both the person doing it and the society at large should get satisfied with what you are doing and the way you are doing it. It is all about the obligation that someone has in the society. Investigation technique The employees use his or her right to access the system to make alteration and modification of data with the intension of financial gains for example in an employee in the IT department of a water providing company can reduce the consumption figures of some specific accounts then liaise with the holders of those accounts for payment Legislation issue Detecting such issue is cumbersome since the intrusion will be taking place internally and hence task tracking may be a challenge. The employees use his or her right to access the system to make alteration and modification of data with the intension of financial gains for example in an employee in the IT department of a water providing company can reduce the consumption figures of some specific accounts then liaise with the holders of those accounts for payment (Trevor 2011) Evidence presented The evidence presented showed that the employee had the password which could allow him to edit the field and modify the grades in the system. The evidence was valid because there was a backup of the same database which had different values. 5. IPR theft & blackmail Overview Intellectual property right theft is where someone intellectual property such as music or movie is copied and sold by another person. In also include sale and use of illegal software which are not licensed. Black mail Social engineering is another attack that is more complicated since its origin is from the innocent person. This is a technique where the person is tricked into performing a computer operation that is harmful. The culprit can seduce the user for exampling telling him or her benefit that the person will get when he does such an activity. This method is mostly used by competitor firms where they convince the employee of the other competing firm to disclose information that is suppose to the top secret of the company. Case study There was a case in the in the court of appeal of the state of California which involved a middle aged man who was charged for selling more than 50,000 copies of pirated music and movies. The man had a machine which could produce more than 100 copies at once. The case took around three years and at last it was ruled out due to lack of adequate evidence. Another that was in the same court the same day about a banker who was prosecuted for transferring money to somebody’s account after that person tricked him into doing it Source: WIPO/ACE/2/12: The Protection of Intellectual Property Rights in Ethical issue There is an ethical framework that guides any specialist that carries out a forensic investigation. Ethic is basically the how somebody behaves towards a particular task or thing. It is all about what you feel it is good and right when you are handling a particular activity. Both the person doing it and the society at large should get satisfied with what you are doing and the way you are doing it. It is all about the obligation that someone has in the society. Investigation technique Digital evidence are gathered, critically analyzed and secured and produced when need be. The gathering of this evidence must be done in a legal way to avoid controversies. It is a section of large and extensive field of digital forensics. Like any other field where there is an investigation to be carried out, there are ethical issues that arise in the process of searching for evidence. The rate at which individual uses computer and the internet is alarming due to the fact that the cost of computer and internet services has dropped drastically. As such the rate at which computer crime grows is directly proportional due to the fact that the idea of meeting real life is overshadowed and hence increases anonymity Legislation issue As far as the digital world is concerned, computer forensic is an outlined rules that governs the computer and computer related device usage. The basic gives consideration on the privacy, intellectual property right and the implication of the computer on the society. Evidence presented The entire process of retrieving evidence from a computer or any other computer related devices is not an easy task. It is also a very tedious work that involves a number of tasks. The evidence that is gathered must have at most security in terms of confidentiality, authenticity, integrity and availability. Any inaccuracy that comes out of the evidence is taken to be the investigator’s fault. The integrity of the evidence whole lies on the hands of the forensic specialist. There is need to curb the risk that this information is facing, there was need for rules and regulation that govern the whole process. References Ransome, J & Rittinghouse, J 2009, VoIP security, Digital Press. Rosenberg, RS 2006, The social impact of computers, Emerald Group Publishing. Salomon, D 2007, Data privacy and security, Springer. Trevor, J 2011, Cyber Attack: Improving Prevention and Prosecution" Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, General Books. Wall, D 2009, Crime and the Internet, Routledge. Wiles, J & Cardwell, K 2007, The best damn cybercrime and digital forensics book period, Syngress. Yar, M 2006, Cybercrime and society, SAGE. Read More