Practical Forensic Imaging


Book Description

Forensic image acquisition is an important part of postmortem incident response and evidence collection. Digital forensic investigators acquire, preserve, and manage digital evidence to support civil and criminal cases; examine organizational policy violations; resolve disputes; and analyze cyber attacks. Practical Forensic Imaging takes a detailed look at how to secure and manage digital evidence using Linux-based command line tools. This essential guide walks you through the entire forensic acquisition process and covers a wide range of practical scenarios and situations related to the imaging of storage media. You’ll learn how to: –Perform forensic imaging of magnetic hard disks, SSDs and flash drives, optical discs, magnetic tapes, and legacy technologies –Protect attached evidence media from accidental modification –Manage large forensic image files, storage capacity, image format conversion, compression, splitting, duplication, secure transfer and storage, and secure disposal –Preserve and verify evidence integrity with cryptographic and piecewise hashing, public key signatures, and RFC-3161 timestamping –Work with newer drive and interface technologies like NVME, SATA Express, 4K-native sector drives, SSHDs, SAS, UASP/USB3x, and Thunderbolt –Manage drive security such as ATA passwords; encrypted thumb drives; Opal self-encrypting drives; OS-encrypted drives using BitLocker, FileVault, and TrueCrypt; and others –Acquire usable images from more complex or challenging situations such as RAID systems, virtual machine images, and damaged media With its unique focus on digital forensic acquisition and evidence preservation, Practical Forensic Imaging is a valuable resource for experienced digital forensic investigators wanting to advance their Linux skills and experienced Linux administrators wanting to learn digital forensics. This is a must-have reference for every digital forensics lab.




Understanding Forensic Digital Imaging


Book Description

Understanding Forensic Digital Imaging offers the principles of forensic digital imaging and photography in a manner that is straightforward and easy to digest for the professional and student. It provides information on how to photograph any setting that may have forensic value, details how to follow practices that are acceptable in court, and recommends what variety of hardware and software are most valuable to a practitioner. In addition to chapters on basic topics such as light and lenses, resolution, and file formats, the book contains forensic-science-specific information on SWGIT and the use of photography in investigations and in court. Of particular note is Chapter 17, Establishing Quality Requirements, which offers information on how to create a good digital image, and is more comprehensive than any other source currently available. - Covers topics that are of vital importance to the practicing professional - Serves as an up-to-date reference in the rapidly evolving world of digital imaging - Uses clear and concise language so that any reader can understand the technology and science behind digital imaging




Imaging for Forensics and Security


Book Description

Imaging for Forensics and Security: From Theory to Practice provides a detailed analysis of new imaging and pattern recognition techniques for the understanding and deployment of biometrics and forensic techniques as practical solutions to increase security. It contains a collection of the recent advances in the technology ranging from theory, design, and implementation to performance evaluation of biometric and forensic systems. This book also contains new methods such as the multiscale approach, directional filter bank, and wavelet maxima for the development of practical solutions to biometric problems. The book introduces a new forensic system based on shoeprint imagery with advanced techniques for use in forensics applications. It also presents the concept of protecting the originality of biometric images stored in databases against intentional and unintentional attacks and fraud detection data in order to further increase the security.




Practical Linux Forensics


Book Description

A resource to help forensic investigators locate, analyze, and understand digital evidence found on modern Linux systems after a crime, security incident or cyber attack. Practical Linux Forensics dives into the technical details of analyzing postmortem forensic images of Linux systems which have been misused, abused, or the target of malicious attacks. It helps forensic investigators locate and analyze digital evidence found on Linux desktops, servers, and IoT devices. Throughout the book, you learn how to identify digital artifacts which may be of interest to an investigation, draw logical conclusions, and reconstruct past activity from incidents. You’ll learn how Linux works from a digital forensics and investigation perspective, and how to interpret evidence from Linux environments. The techniques shown are intended to be independent of the forensic analysis platforms and tools used. Learn how to: Extract evidence from storage devices and analyze partition tables, volume managers, popular Linux filesystems (Ext4, Btrfs, and Xfs), and encryption Investigate evidence from Linux logs, including traditional syslog, the systemd journal, kernel and audit logs, and logs from daemons and applications Reconstruct the Linux startup process, from boot loaders (UEFI and Grub) and kernel initialization, to systemd unit files and targets leading up to a graphical login Perform analysis of power, temperature, and the physical environment of a Linux machine, and find evidence of sleep, hibernation, shutdowns, reboots, and crashes Examine installed software, including distro installers, package formats, and package management systems from Debian, Fedora, SUSE, Arch, and other distros Perform analysis of time and Locale settings, internationalization including language and keyboard settings, and geolocation on a Linux system Reconstruct user login sessions (shell, X11 and Wayland), desktops (Gnome, KDE, and others) and analyze keyrings, wallets, trash cans, clipboards, thumbnails, recent files and other desktop artifacts Analyze network configuration, including interfaces, addresses, network managers, DNS, wireless artifacts (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, WWAN), VPNs (including WireGuard), firewalls, and proxy settings Identify traces of attached peripheral devices (PCI, USB, Thunderbolt, Bluetooth) including external storage, cameras, and mobiles, and reconstruct printing and scanning activity




Multimedia Forensics and Security


Book Description

As information technology is rapidly progressing, an enormous amount of media can be easily exchanged through Internet and other communication networks. Increasing amounts of digital image, video, and music have created numerous information security issues and is now taken as one of the top research and development agendas for researchers, organizations, and governments worldwide. ""Multimedia Forensics and Security"" provides an in-depth treatment of advancements in the emerging field of multimedia forensics and security by tackling challenging issues such as digital watermarking for copyright protection, digital fingerprinting for transaction tracking, and digital camera source identification.




Digital Image Forensics


Book Description

Photographic imagery has come a long way from the pinhole cameras of the nineteenth century. Digital imagery, and its applications, develops in tandem with contemporary society’s sophisticated literacy of this subtle medium. This book examines the ways in which digital images have become ever more ubiquitous as legal and medical evidence, just as they have become our primary source of news and have replaced paper-based financial documentation. Crucially, the contributions also analyze the very profound problems which have arisen alongside the digital image, issues of veracity and progeny that demand systematic and detailed response: It looks real, but is it? What camera captured it? Has it been doctored or subtly altered? Attempting to provide answers to these slippery issues, the book covers how digital images are created, processed and stored before moving on to set out the latest techniques for forensically examining images, and finally addressing practical issues such as courtroom admissibility. In an environment where even novice users can alter digital media, this authoritative publication will do much so stabilize public trust in these real, yet vastly flexible, images of the world around us.




Digital Image Forensics


Book Description

This book discusses blind investigation and recovery of digital evidence left behind on digital devices, primarily for the purpose of tracing cybercrime sources and criminals. It presents an overview of the challenges of digital image forensics, with a specific focus on two of the most common forensic problems. The first part of the book addresses image source investigation, which involves mapping an image back to its camera source to facilitate investigating and tracing the source of a crime. The second part of the book focuses on image-forgery detection, primarily focusing on “copy-move forgery” in digital images, and presenting effective solutions to copy-move forgery detection with an emphasis on additional related challenges such as blur-invariance, similar genuine object identification, etc. The book concludes with future research directions, including counter forensics. With the necessary mathematical information in every chapter, the book serves as a useful reference resource for researchers and professionals alike. In addition, it can also be used as a supplementary text for upper-undergraduate and graduate-level courses on “Digital Image Processing”, “Information Security”, “Machine Learning”, “Computer Vision” and “Multimedia Security and Forensics”.




Computer and Intrusion Forensics


Book Description

Annotation A comprehensive and broad introduction to computer and intrusion forensics, covering the areas of law enforcement, national security and corporate fraud, this practical book helps professionals understand case studies from around the world, and treats key emerging areas such as stegoforensics, image identification, authorship categorization, and machine learning.




Multimedia Security


Book Description

Multimedia Security: Watermarking, Steganography, and Forensics outlines essential principles, technical information, and expert insights on multimedia security technology used to prove that content is authentic and has not been altered. Illustrating the need for improved content security as the Internet and digital multimedia applications rapidly evolve, this book presents a wealth of everyday protection application examples in fields including multimedia mining and classification, digital watermarking, steganography, and digital forensics. Giving readers an in-depth overview of different aspects of information security mechanisms and methods, this resource also serves as an instructional tool on how to use the fundamental theoretical framework required for the development of extensive advanced techniques. The presentation of several robust algorithms illustrates this framework, helping readers to quickly master and apply fundamental principles. Presented case studies cover: The execution (and feasibility) of techniques used to discover hidden knowledge by applying multimedia duplicate mining methods to large multimedia content Different types of image steganographic schemes based on vector quantization Techniques used to detect changes in human motion behavior and to classify different types of small-group motion behavior Useful for students, researchers, and professionals, this book consists of a variety of technical tutorials that offer an abundance of graphs and examples to powerfully convey the principles of multimedia security and steganography. Imparting the extensive experience of the contributors, this approach simplifies problems, helping readers more easily understand even the most complicated theories. It also enables them to uncover novel concepts involved in the implementation of algorithms, which can lead to the discovery of new problems and new means of solving them.




Photoshop CS3 for Forensics Professionals


Book Description

Digital imaging technology has been used in forensics since at least 1992, yet until now there?has been?no practical instruction available to address the unique issues of image processing in an everyday forensic environment. Photoshop CS3 for Forensics Professionals serves the everyday, real-world needs of law enforcement and legal personnel dealing with digital images (including both photos and video stills). This book is an excellent tool for: Law enforcement personnel, from crime scene and arson investigators, detectives, and patrol officers to forensic photographers, fingerprint examiners, video analysts, tool mark and footwear examiners, and criminalists. Security pros in such fields as private investigation, insurance, fraud detection, and loss prevention. Scientific and technical users of Photoshop with workflows similar to law enforcement, such as medical photographers, research imaging experts, engineering and architecture staff, and industrial photographers. Staff responsible for maintaining a photo archive or printing images for court. Photoshop CS3 for Forensics Professionals is the only book to provide forensics professionals with specific answers to their imaging questions. This is the perfect resource for those who want to move from simple theory to the essential skills needed to be more effective. This resource is dividied into three parts: Part I: The Essentials is about setting up your workflow, archiving your images, and familiarizing yourself with Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Bridge, including the setting up of preferences. Also covered are the best practices in writing reports and providing courtroom testimony. Part II: The Digital Darkroom teaches how to use Photoshop to accomplish what traditionally was done in the darkroom, from correcting color casts to making prints and exhibits for courtroom use. Part III: Image Analysis & Enhancement covers techniques for clarifying images so that details can be better viewed and used for analysis or comparison, from contrast enhancement and pattern removal to even forensic video analysis. The companion CD-ROM provides sample images—including various accident and crime scenes—you can use to practice the techniques from the book while?following along with the tutorials. It also includes several scripts, plug-ins, and actions so you can work more effectively. In addition, instructor's materials are available so you can use book in workshops and training seminars. Order this one-of-a-kind resource today! Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.