Cell Phone Forensic Technology

Justin Ogden is using cell phone forensics to help the country locate missing people and aircraft.

He's only 28 years old and a Captain with the Air Force's auxiliary Civil Air Patrol or CAP.

"Try and take the technical information provided by the cellular providers and define search areas based on that information," Ogden said.

Pretty much everyone these days has a cell phone. If it's on and you find yourself lost in the middle of no where, Ogden says he should be able to find you.

He uses cell phone towers, text messages, and maps to help locate people. That information helps Ogden, who is the only person in America using this type of technology to pinpoint locations within one square mile to a few hundred miles.

Ogden was tapped by the Air Force's Rescue Coordination Center which is based at Tyndall Air Force Base, to help assist them with their search efforts.

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Survey Finds 73 Percent of Enterprises Plan to Bring E-Discovery In-House in Response to Rise in E-Discovery Requests

Clearwell Systems, Inc., a leader in intelligent e-discovery, today announced findings from a survey conducted in partnership with analyst firm Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG). The survey, titled "Trends in Electronic Discovery: A Market Perspective" quantifies both the rise in e-discovery and litigation over the past year. Additionally, the survey findings reinforce the need for increased enterprise readiness to manage the expected growth in volume of cases in 2010.

It has been three years since the U.S. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were amended with provisions centered on discovery and management of electronically stored information (ESI). In the same timeframe, the macroeconomic climate went from explosive growth to recession, forcing organizations to cut costs as quickly as possible. As companies continue to operate in cost containment or reduction mode, they are changing the way they conduct e-discovery, moving away from a primarily outsourced approach to bringing core elements of e-discovery in-house. The intersection of these two industry trends led ESG and Clearwell to survey over 100 Fortune 2000 enterprises and government agencies.

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Computer Forensics Investigator Biography - Melanie Hampton

I recover digital data from crime scenes by analyzing cell phones, desktop and laptop computers, digital cameras, hard drives, CD-ROMs and other digital devices. This data helps incriminate people who are involved with child pornography, financial crimes, homicides, drug deals and other offenses.

Unfortunately, child pornography has exploded with the use of digital cameras and file sharing, and that is what I spend a large amount of my time investigating. There are huge amounts of photos and other digital data to process involving child pornography.

Read more here.

FBI Computer Forensics Labs Make a Digital Difference

A domestic terrorist. A kidnapper. A corrupt politician. An identity thief.

These are just of a few of those brought to justice with the help of the FBI's Regional Computer Forensics Laboratories (RCFLs), according to the latest RCFL annual report now available online.

Read more here.

Patch the Cracks of ESI Search

Electronically stored information may be easier to search than manually searching the same amount of information. However, there are several "leaks" in this digital information search that can be costly to fix. Being aware of where information is not being found is the first step of limiting these search flaws.

Read more about the "leaks" in ESI search here.

The Pivotal Role Of Computer Forensics In Today’s Litigation

Electronically stored information (ESI) continues to take center stage in all types of litigation, from bankruptcy to tort. Author Keenen Milner discusses the critical role computer forensics experts play in collecting and preserving digital evidence.

Over the past decade or so, attorneys have come to realize that some of the most valuable evidence is found not in filing cabinets but on computers and servers. The 2006 amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which expressly made ESI subject to discovery, also reflect the growing role of digital data.

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Porn pervasive in workplace

Sharon Nelson, president of Sensei Enterprises, a Virginia-based computer forensics company said that 26 percent of companies surveyed in the first half of 2009 have fired employees for violating e-mail policies. More than 26 percent have sacked employees for violation of Internet policies.

Read more here.

IT Expert's Passion for Computer Forensics

A former military policeman and IT security expert at Northern Rock is combining his talents in a data investigations business.

Andrew Maddison, who worked at Northern Rock for eight years as head of the technical security team, has launched Orbital Forensics to work with businesses and the legal profession to investigate computer and mobile phone fraud and misuse.

Read more here.

Computer Attacks May Not Be From Noth Korea

Evidence has surfaced that the denial-of-service attacks that crippled dozens of U.S. and South Korean web sites last week may not have been perpetrated by North Korea, as widely surmised.

Bkis Security has just disclosed analysis showing that 166,908 botted PCs from 74 countries were used in the attacks. Commands were routed through eight control servers, tied into a master server located in the United Kingdom and running the Windows Server 2003 operating system, says Bkis research director Nguyen Minh Duc.

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Michael Jackson's Death Used To Spread Virus

The world's obsession with superstar Michael Jackson's sudden death is being exploited by a range of digital crooks who - in at least one instance - are using it to infect computers with a virus that can steal bank-account numbers and passwords.

According to the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Spam Data Mine, cybercriminals are embedding the data- stealing virus in an e-mail "that claims to link you to a website that will reveal Michael Jackson's killer".

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Computer Forensics Grohttp://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=8390894616923382391up Discovers ATM Malware

"SKULDUGGERY," says Andrew Henwood, "is a very good word to describe what this extremely advanced, cleverly written malware gets up to. We've never seen anything like it."

What he has discovered is a devious piece of criminal coding that has been quietly at work in a clutch of cash machines at banks in Russia and Ukraine. It allows a gang member to walk up to an ATM, insert a "trigger" card, and use the machine's receipt printer to produce a list of all the debit card numbers used that day, including their start and expiry dates - and their PINs. Everything needed, in fact, to clone those cards and start emptying bank accounts. In some cases, the malicious software even allows the criminal to eject the machine's banknote storage cassette into the street.

Read more here.

The Ins and Outs of Cyber Warfare

Imagine a situation where a powerful country wants to annex its small neighbor, so it launches a week-long campaign of cyberattacks aimed at disrupting the financial, energy, telecom and media systems of its neighbor's biggest ally. A week later, the aggressor launches a full-scale cyberwar on its neighbor that includes air and naval defenses. With its ally's defenses weakened, the neighbor agrees to become a province of the aggressor in less than a week.

Read more here.

More Files Related to Jail Suit Scrubbed from Computer

Attorneys have discovered a second batch of missing computer files related to the inquiry into former Sheriff Bill Balkwill's award of a $9 million no-bid jail contract.

Someone deleted a "significant amount of data" from a desktop used by a top executive for Armor Correctional Health Services.

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Computer Forensics Expert Warns Employers of Computer Fraud

Don't underestimate the wrath of a disgruntled ex-employee.

As the downturn forces businesses to shed jobs, employers should watch for computer sabotage by laid-off employees, says Gary Kessler, a computer forensics expert.

Just one vengeful act can cost a company thousands of dollars in repairs and lost productivity, and he said that these days it probably happens more often than many employers realize.

Read more here.

Boston DA Used Computer Forensics to Capture Suspected Craigslist Killer

A medical student facing charges of murdering a masseuse he had lured to a hotel through Craigslist was linked to the slaying in part by surveillance video and computer evidence, authorities said.

Philip Markoff, 22, was due in court in Boston on Tuesday in connection with the shooting death of a New York woman at a luxury hotel in Boston on April 14 and the kidnapping and armed robbery of another masseuse April 10 who was tied up at another hotel.

Read more here.

How Far is Too Far in E-Discovery?

In oral arguments last week, the Texas Supreme Court wrestled with how far courts should go in allowing electronic discovery.

In Re: Weekley Homes LP raises an issue of first impression for this state's Supreme Court: Can a trial court order one litigant in a civil suit to provide a court-appointed computer forensic expert access to its computer hard drives for mirror imaging and searching, if the opposing side pays the costs?

Read more here.

Questions Surround Former Sheriff's Laptop

Three months before 11,000 files were deleted from former Sheriff Bill Balkwill's laptop, the sheriff and two top administrators signed a document saying the computer had been sent off for recycling, according to court documents made public Friday.

In November, Balkwill, Maj. Tim Carney and Information Technology director Jeffrey Feathers each signed paperwork that indicated the laptop -- a key piece of evidence in a lawsuit over a lucrative jail contract -- was "obsolete," worth only $10 and had to be scrapped.

But the laptop was never sent to the recycling yard and Carney went to Balkwill's home to retrieve it on Feb. 4 -- the same day that someone used a common Internet program to erase 11,000 files.

The revelation that Balkwill's work laptop was supposed to be recycled came amid a criminal investigation at the Sheriff's Office, where detectives are trying to find out who deleted the files.

Read more here.

The Security Implications of a Computer Clock

Is the clock on every computer system in your organization set to the correct time? If your answer is no, you're not alone. According to a 2007 study by Florian Buchholz and Brett Tjaden, both professors at James Madison University in Virginia, more than a quarter of the Web servers on the Internet have their clocks off by more than 10 seconds. Making sure that computers are set with the correct time is one of those seemingly petty technical things that can unfortunately have big, negative consequences if not done properly. That's because assumptions about time and its flow permeate modern computer systems—including software, hardware and networking. This is true of desktop systems, servers, mobile devices and even embedded systems like HVAC, alarm systems and electronic doorknobs.

Buchholz and Tjaden studied Web servers because they are particularly amenable to analysis: Every time you request a page from a modern Web server, the server sends back an HTTP header called "date" which indicates the time-of-day for the server's clock. But unless your organization has made an effort to keep time in a precise and accurate way, the chances are very good that you're doing a bad job.

Read more here.

Recession Affecting E-Discovery Providers

Economic belt-cinching has hit some electronic discovery firms, prompting layoffs and rumors of realignments.

Rumors of recent layoffs at i365, a Seagate Technology company, were confirmed by a spokesman who declined to provide details.

"We're not able to disclose any specific numbers about our recent realignment," said John Sun, spokesman for i365, a data retention and recovery company.

Read more at Law.com.

Kazeon Cuts Costs of Entry-Level E-Discovery

As e-discovery becomes a must-have application and more vendors enter the market, e-discovery specialist Kazeon Systems Inc. today introduced several new licensing models and drastically cut the entry price for companies looking to get started using the software to protect themselves during litigation. With a variety of new e-discovery services and applications competing for a piece of the growing market, Kazeon's move may be the first salvo in a new e-discovery price war.

Kazeon has been charging $80,000 for a server license. Under the new pricing models, customers can get started using the company's software for $10,000, says Karthik Kannan, vice president of market and business development for Kazeon. "We don't want e-discovery to be a multimillion-dollar, six-month process," he says.

Read more at Byte and Switch.

Court Affirms Order Requiring a Non-Party to Spend $6 Mil. to Comply with e-Discovery Subpoena

Appellate courts do not often weigh in on e-discovery issues, but when they do, it is a big deal. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia did so on January 6, 2009, when it issued an opinion on e-discovery and sanctions. In re Fannie Mae Securities Litigation, _ F.3d _, 2009 WL 215282009, U.S. App. LEXIS 9 (D.C. App. Jan. 6, 2009). Typically, I would be glad to have a Circuit Court opinion on e-discovery. Not so here.

Unfortunately, In re: Fannie Mae Securities Litigation sets a troubling precedent in favor of enforcing exorbitant e-discovery costs. In this case, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (”OFHEO”), was required to spend six million dollars, representing nine percent of its total annual budget, just to comply with a subpoena for electronic documents. Although OFHEO clearly had relevant information to the multidistrict litigation against the Federal National Mortgage Assn. (”Fannie Mae”) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. (”Freddie Mac”), they were not a party to the litigation. This fact, coupled with the high expense involved in an over-broad e-discovery request, did not seem to concern the court, which is why this decision is troubling.

Read more at e-Discovery Team.

Houston Computer Forensics Expert Reinvents Career as "New Age" PI

A Houston computer forensics expert has changed his career in a surprising way. Gary Huestis is now a licensed private investigator for the state of the Texas.

Huestis, who is well-known in local computer IT circles, represents the new face of an old profession. “My new career path was literally born of the computer and Internet age,” said Huestis. “I am the last person in the world most people think would ever become a private investigator.”

The Private Security Board of the Texas Department of Public Safety recently licensed Huestis as a private investigator. He owns Houston-based EDiscovery Forensics, Inc. Since 1995, Huestis has also owned Houston Computing Services, a computer repair company.

Read the rest of the story here.

Hackers Spread Virus Through Fake CNN E-mails

Leave it to computer hackers to find a way to profit from a war. But hackers are apparently using the Gaza conflict and a fake CNN news site to infiltrate computers and steal passwords.

"Malicious software or malware takes passwords for online banking sites, online shopping carts, e-mail and chat programs and FTP sites and sends them to a computer in the Ukraine," explained Gary Warner, director of research in computer forensics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Read more at examiner.com.

Top 10 Trends for eDiscovery in 2009

The folks at Clearwell Systems, whose platform works to streamline the eDiscovery process, have looked into their crystal ball and have offered a few predictions for the new year. Among them, trends that respond to financial and legal stresses as well as a need for more collaboration. The most compelling of their predictions lay within the realm of compliance and technology.

For the most part, there predictions aren't surprising our outrageous. They take aim at the very crux of what eDiscovery proselytizes -- show your work, collaborate, adapt and take control!

Drum roll please -- Top 10 Trends for eDiscovery in 2009:

1. Government Investigations Increase: If you thought 2008 had a lot of law suits, you ain't seen nothing yet. An increase in economic tensions and the increase in high-profile scandals will most probably lead to a rise in government data requests, compliance audits and investigations from both a state and federal level.

Click here to see the other 9 top trends.