Infa 650 Computer Forensic Mid Term Due Date June 30 2020

Infa 650 Computer Forensicmid Termdue Date June 30 2020 By 12pm Ea

Discuss how digital forensic procedures may differ when used in support of law enforcement versus when used for incident response and how computer forensics tools might be integrated into incident response.

What are the qualifications of an expert witness as discussed in Federal Rules of Evidence, Rule 702?

In your labs, you “hashed” files that you added as evidence. Explain the use of hashes in authenticating evidence. Address how collisions might negatively impact a case. How would an investigator avoid collisions?

Discuss the importance of timestamping server and network log files that might be used as evidence to a court case. How would digitally signing log files support their use as evidence?

How do attackers use anti-forensic tools to misdirect an investigation? List at least 3 common anti-forensic techniques.

What is the significance of the 4th Amendment to a forensic investigation? If you are a corporation, what is the best way to ensure that users waive any expectation of privacy when using their computers?

Discuss why a live analysis is preferred over a “dead” analysis and the issue of “volatility.” In an investigation, what information would need to be captured first?

As a forensic investigator, provide two examples, one of a corporate investigation and one of a criminal investigation, in which you would be asked to investigate. Identify where the evidence supporting each of these cases in your example would be likely to reside.

Discuss how capturing a bit-stream image differs from simply copying the contents of a suspect’s hard drive to an evidence drive. What information would be present in a bit-stream image that would not be present if you just copied the drive?

Identify at least 1 challenge and a possible solution to acquiring network data that you don’t have when acquiring computer data.

Discuss why the Cloud is a challenge to network forensics.

Paper For Above instruction

Digital forensic procedures vary significantly depending on whether they are conducted in support of law enforcement agencies or during incident response scenarios. Laws and organizational policies heavily influence the methods, evidence collection, and analysis techniques applied in each context. Law enforcement procedures are strictly governed by legal protocols to ensure the admissibility of evidence in court, emphasizing thorough documentation, chain of custody, and the integrity of the evidence. In contrast, incident response often emphasizes rapid containment, eradication, and recovery from cyber incidents, sometimes with less rigid procedural frameworks but still requiring evidence integrity. Tools such as EnCase, FTK, and Wireshark are integrated into incident response to swiftly identify, contain, and analyze cyber threats, aiding in real-time decision-making and forensics efforts. Effective integration of these tools helps responders to preserve volatile data and avoid contamination.

The qualifications of an expert witness, as outlined in Federal Rules of Evidence, Rule 702, include specialized knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education that can assist the trier of fact in understanding the evidence or determining a fact in issue. An expert witness must demonstrate that their expertise is reliably established and relevant to the case. This ensures that their testimony is both credible and useful in court proceedings, thereby enhancing the evidentiary value of forensic analysis.

Hashing files in digital forensics plays a crucial role in authenticating evidence. A hash function generates a unique digital fingerprint that verifies the integrity of a file. If a file is altered, its hash value changes, alerting investigators to potential tampering. Collisions occur when different data produce identical hash values, which could falsely validate altered evidence, negatively impacting a case. To prevent collisions, investigators prefer cryptographic hash functions with a low probability of such occurrences, such as SHA-256, which is computationally infeasible to produce the same hash from different inputs.

The importance of timestamping server and network log files is paramount in establishing a reliable timeline of events in a court case. Properly timestamped logs provide a chronological record that can corroborate or refute claims. Digitally signing log files enhances their integrity and authenticity, preventing unauthorized modifications, and enabling courts to validate that logs have not been tampered with, therefore supporting their admissibility as evidence.

Attackers employ anti-forensic tools to hide, modify, or destroy digital evidence, thereby misleading investigations. Common techniques include data encryption to prevent analysis, file wiping utilities that overwrite data to obscure presence, and timestomping, which alters file timestamps to distort the timeline of actions. These techniques challenge forensic investigators to develop methods to detect and counteract such measures, maintaining the integrity of digital investigations.

The Fourth Amendment offers protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, significantly impacting forensic investigations. It requires law enforcement to obtain a warrant before conducting searches, ensuring adherence to constitutional rights. For corporations, establishing clear policies that include explicit user consent or contractual agreements about monitoring and data collection helps in waiving implied privacy expectations, thereby legally supporting digital investigations.

Live analysis, or volatile data collection, is preferred over dead analysis because volatile information such as RAM contents, network connections, and running processes can be lost if the system is turned off. Capturing volatile data first is critical to preserve evidence that reflects the live state of the system during the incident. Proper techniques involve using tools like FTK Imager or Volatility to acquire memory dumps and volatile data before powering down or disconnecting a device.

In a corporate investigation, a common case involves a suspected data breach where evidence such as email logs, access records, and network traffic reside on company servers and network devices. For a criminal case, evidence might include suspect devices like smartphones or computers, where files, communications, and artifacts are stored locally.

Capturing a bit-stream image involves creating a sector-by-sector copy of a hard drive, preserving every bit of data, including slack space, deleted files, and unallocated space. Unlike simple copying of files, a bit-stream image maintains a complete replica of the storage medium, capturing hidden or deleted data that would otherwise be lost. This comprehensive image ensures forensic integrity and supports deeper analysis.

One challenge in acquiring network data is the volume and speed of data transmission, which can overwhelm forensic tools. A viable solution involves using specialized high-speed network capture hardware and filtering techniques to focus on relevant traffic, thereby making data acquisition manageable and effective.

The cloud presents challenges for network forensics due to distributed infrastructure, data encryption, and multi-tenancy. Investigators face difficulties in accessing comprehensive logs, correlating data across multiple jurisdictions, and ensuring evidence integrity. Cloud service providers' policies and lack of direct access complicate investigation efforts, requiring new methodologies and cooperation frameworks to effectively conduct forensic analysis in cloud environments.

References

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• Harrington, S. (2018). Practice and procedures of digital forensics. CRC Press.
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• Rogers, M., & Winterfeld, P. (2020). Cloud forensics: challenges and solutions. IEEE Cloud Computing, 7(3), 34-43.
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• Carrier, B. (2019). File system forensic analysis. Addison-Wesley.