The Basics of Computer Forensics

Our paychecks are made with their help, the music we hear, the movies we see, the books we read, the facility of being able to do almost everything online, ultimately it all comes down to computers and the internet.

It shouldn’t surprise us if the network on and around which we have based all our important activities is being targeted by criminals and delinquents for illicit and illegal activities. A single click now has the capacity to do more harm than a bomb. Computers can be involved in criminal activities both ways; as an aim for theft of information, information being the biggest currency in the present times or as a means to accomplish other crimes in which they and other equivalent digital media are used to communicate and plan.

!b>Cyber Crimes and Forensic Investigations

Computer forensics is the application of computer science in helping the legal process, recovering and extracting evidence and solving the crimes. The crimes which involve computers and the internet and related networks or are aided by such devices are termed as cyber crimes. These include an array of crimes like hacking, pornography, credit card and bank account frauds, cyber stalking, chat room crimes, phishing, software and other piracies, dissemination of virus attacks etc. Even the latest flick in the Die Hard series deals with cyber crimes. How the hackers can sabotage the servers and manipulate stock markets and paralyze the entire system of a city has been graphically depicted.

The most important and attractive factor for a cyber criminal is the degree of anonymity a computer network offers. It’s heaven for a technological thug where he can use all his skills, achieve his target and leave people baffled about his identity. A person who may be a real gentleman overtly could very well be involved in trading and exchange of child pornographic pictures. Hackers can get inside the networks of defense and security systems and sensitive information could be stolen by terrorists and rival nations posing a great threat to security and integrity of a state.

Every computer connected to the internet is provided with an Internet Protocol Address. However, dedicated hackers and criminals have various methods to bypass this obstacle and hide their location and identity. They may use fake IP addresses or use proxy addresses. Some networks may detect the country but not the exact location, or the call may be routed through various countries so that it becomes complicated to locate the place where the call originated. This is where computer forensics comes in. To trace a hacker’s location and identity is the most challenging aspects of computer forensics. Even the emails can be traced back to their senders and tools are available to identify the network from where intrusion was made.

Industrial Espionage and Hacking

Information and the data is the key to success in today’s world. Corporate world thrives on trade secrets, inside information and breakthroughs. Industrial Espionage is stealing of this information for commercial and monetary gains. It also includes destroying the systems by introduction of viruses or deletion of data. Since, the commercial information is no longer stored on paper, obviously, for commercial eavesdropping, computers and hacking into the competitors’ networks are being used. Computer forensics experts deal with security networks, encryptions and data recovery to investigate such crimes.

Mobile Phones and Criminal Investigation

Mobile phones being important evidence nowadays in crime investigations can be highlighted by the fact that recently a doctor was charged with supporting terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow because he had given his mobile phone SIM card to his cousins who were found guilty of such attacks. At present, mobile phones and other digital media such as i-pods and electronic diaries are highly advanced gadgets and can store enormous amounts of information ranging from pictures, messages, addresses, conversations, maps etc, both in the SIM card and the handset. All these devices are web and GPRS enabled and can prove immensely useful in hatching up of plans and conspiracies. However, they can be extremely useful in investigating such crimes and any relevant data recovered from them is admissible as evidence in the court. They may show call histories, messages, photos etc which help in tracing the suspects’ locations and identities. Data recovery experts can be used to recover data from the phone memory cards and the cellular operator companies may also help tracing the calls made from that SIM card.

It goes without saying that the investigator has to be a better expert at computers and hacking than the criminals to be able to catch them. It’s a very upcoming field and as the technology evolves, so do the ways of sabotaging it. Anyhow, computer forensics is continuing to adapt and grow and it will continue to make more advances.

Article Source: http://www.uberarticles.com/articles

James Walsh is a freelance writer and copy editor. For more information on computer crime and Computer Forensics see www.fieldsassociates.co.uk

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