Digital Forensics: Review of Issues in Scientific Validation of Digital Evidence

Arshad, Humaira,Jantan, Aman Bin,Abiodun, Oludare Isaac Korea Information Processing Society 2018 Journal of information processing systems Vol.14 No.2

Digital forensics is a vital part of almost every criminal investigation given the amount of information available and the opportunities offered by electronic data to investigate and evidence a crime. However, in criminal justice proceedings, these electronic pieces of evidence are often considered with the utmost suspicion and uncertainty, although, on occasions are justifiable. Presently, the use of scientifically unproven forensic techniques are highly criticized in legal proceedings. Nevertheless, the exceedingly distinct and dynamic characteristics of electronic data, in addition to the current legislation and privacy laws remain as challenging aspects for systematically attesting evidence in a court of law. This article presents a comprehensive study to examine the issues that are considered essential to discuss and resolve, for the proper acceptance of evidence based on scientific grounds. Moreover, the article explains the state of forensics in emerging sub-fields of digital technology such as, cloud computing, social media, and the Internet of Things (IoT), and reviewing the challenges which may complicate the process of systematic validation of electronic evidence. The study further explores various solutions previously proposed, by researchers and academics, regarding their appropriateness based on their experimental evaluation. Additionally, this article suggests open research areas, highlighting many of the issues and problems associated with the empirical evaluation of these solutions for immediate attention by researchers and practitioners. Notably, academics must react to these challenges with appropriate emphasis on methodical verification. Therefore, for this purpose, the issues in the experiential validation of practices currently available are reviewed in this study. The review also discusses the struggle involved in demonstrating the reliability and validity of these approaches with contemporary evaluation methods. Furthermore, the development of best practices, reliable tools and the formulation of formal testing methods for digital forensic techniques are highlighted which could be extremely useful and of immense value to improve the trustworthiness of electronic evidence in legal proceedings.

Digital Forensics: Review of Issues in Scientific Validation of Digital Evidence

( Humaira Arshad ),( Aman Bin Jantan ),( Oludare Isaac Abiodun ) 한국정보처리학회 2018 Journal of information processing systems Vol.14 No.2

Digital forensics is a vital part of almost every criminal investigation given the amount of information available and the opportunities offered by electronic data to investigate and evidence a crime. However, in criminal justice proceedings, these electronic pieces of evidence are often considered with the utmost suspicion and uncertainty, although, on occasions are justifiable. Presently, the use of scientifically unproven forensic techniques are highly criticized in legal proceedings. Nevertheless, the exceedingly distinct and dynamic characteristics of electronic data, in addition to the current legislation and privacy laws remain as challenging aspects for systematically attesting evidence in a court of law. This article presents a comprehensive study to examine the issues that are considered essential to discuss and resolve, for the proper acceptance of evidence based on scientific grounds. Moreover, the article explains the state of forensics in emerging sub-fields of digital technology such as, cloud computing, social media, and the Internet of Things (IoT), and reviewing the challenges which may complicate the process of systematic validation of electronic evidence. The study further explores various solutions previously proposed, by researchers and academics, regarding their appropriateness based on their experimental evaluation. Additionally, this article suggests open research areas, highlighting many of the issues and problems associated with the empirical evaluation of these solutions for immediate attention by researchers and practitioners. Notably, academics must react to these challenges with appropriate emphasis on methodical verification. Therefore, for this purpose, the issues in the experiential validation of practices currently available are reviewed in this study. The review also discusses the struggle involved in demonstrating the reliability and validity of these approaches with contemporary evaluation methods. Furthermore, the development of best practices, reliable tools and the formulation of formal testing methods for digital forensic techniques are highlighted which could be extremely useful and of immense value to improve the trustworthiness of electronic evidence in legal proceedings.

k-anonymity Diagnosis Centre

Mohammad Reza Zare Mirakabad,Aman Jantan,Stephane Bressan 보안공학연구지원센터 2009 International Journal of Security and Its Applicat Vol.3 No.1

Many efforts have been done in the field of privacy preservation to devise algorithms for data k-anonymization and l-diversification trying to protect privacy, by modification of data, for example. Fewer efforts have been made for devising techniques, tools and methodologies for investigation and evaluation of privacy risks. We are concerned about privacy diagnosis before starting protection. Actually we show privacy leakages threaten data publication. We introduce a Privacy Diagnosis Centre for this purpose. In this paper toward this diagnosis centre we focus on anonymity and, in particular, k-anonymity. Then we aim at k-anonymity diagnosis system. Such a system explores various questions about k-anonymity of data. “For which k is my data k-anonymous?”, “is my data sufficiently k-anonymous?”, “which subset and projection of data can be safely published to guarantee given k?”, “which information, if available from an outside source, threatens the k-anonymity of my data?” are examples of questions can be answered. We leverage two properties of k-anonymity that we express in the form of two lemmas. The first lemma is a monotonicity property that enables us to adapt the a-priori algorithm for k-anonymity. The second lemma, however, is a determinism property that enables us to devise an efficient algorithm for δ-suppression. We illustrate and empirically analyze the performance of the proposed algorithms.

Digital Forensics Investigation Approaches in Mitigating Cybercrimes: A Review

Kazaure Abdullahi Aminu,Jantan Aman,Yusoff Mohd Najwadi 한국과학기술정보연구원 2023 Journal of Information Science Theory and Practice Vol.11 No.4

Cybercrime is a significant threat to Internet users, involving crimes committed using computers or computer networks. The landscape of cyberspace presents a complex terrain, making the task of tracing the origins of sensitive data a formidable and often elusive endeavor. However, tracing the source of sensitive data in online cyberspace is critically challenging, and detecting cyber-criminals on the other hand remains a time-consuming process, especially in social networks. Cyber-criminals target individuals for financial gain or to cause harm to their assets, resulting in the loss or theft of millions of user data over the past few decades. Forensic professionals play a vital role in conducting successful investigations and acquiring legally acceptable evidence admissible in court proceedings using modern techniques. This study aims to provide an overview of forensic investigation methods for extracting digital evidence from computer systems and mobile devices to combat persistent cybercrime. It also discusses current cybercrime issues and mitigation procedures.

Digital Forensic Investigation on Social Media Platforms: A Survey on Emerging Machine Learning Approaches

Abdullahi Aminu Kazaure,Aman Jantan,Mohd Najwadi Yusoff Korea Institute of Science and Technology Informat 2024 Journal of Information Science Theory and Practice Vol.12 No.1

An online social network is a platform that is continuously expanding, which enables groups of people to share their views and communicate with one another using the Internet. The social relations among members of the public are significantly improved because of this gesture. Despite these advantages and opportunities, criminals are continuing to broaden their attempts to exploit people by making use of techniques and approaches designed to undermine and exploit their victims for criminal activities. The field of digital forensics, on the other hand, has made significant progress in reducing the impact of this risk. Even though most of these digital forensic investigation techniques are carried out manually, most of these methods are not usually appropriate for use with online social networks due to their complexity, growth in data volumes, and technical issues that are present in these environments. In both civil and criminal cases, including sexual harassment, intellectual property theft, cyberstalking, online terrorism, and cyberbullying, forensic investigations on social media platforms have become more crucial. This study explores the use of machine learning techniques for addressing criminal incidents on social media platforms, particularly during forensic investigations. In addition, it outlines some of the difficulties encountered by forensic investigators while investigating crimes on social networking sites.