The Association for Computing Machinery recently published proceedings from the 2018 Conference on Computer and Communications Security featuring CSAFE research on digital forensics. CSAFE team member and Iowa State University Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Dr. Yong Guan and his team detail the increasing role smartphones play in investigating cyber and physical crimes.
From 2006 to 2011, the number of crimes involving mobile-phone evidence increased 10% each year. Current tools for analyzing digital evidence on a phone typically focus on short term data stored in the phone’s memory. CSAFE is developing new methods to reconstruct smartphone activities over time in permanent storage, currently an under researched area.
Smartphones generate vast amounts of data, making it hard for forensic examiners to determine which files contain relevant evidence. Guan’s new tool, EviHunter, automatically identifies files on an Android device that could possibly store digital evidence. EviHunter provides investigators with a more efficient, accurate way to determine which data is relevant to the case.
Learn more about this award winning research, and visit the CSAFE blog to better understand how technology is changing the world of crime.