View Proposal

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Proposer

Mike Just

Title

Digging Deep with Digital Forensics

Goal

To test the reliability of a set of DF tools under a variety of different conditions

Description

Digital forensics (DF) tools are used to recover data from physical devices such as hard drives and smartphones. By doing the recovery at a lower systems level, the tools can recover data that might not be visible through higher level applications. For example, data that might have been "deleted" by an application may still be recoverable (sometimes only partially) by a DF tool. Such tools are important for various applied areas, including criminal investigations. Thus, the recovery of such data may be relied upon as evidence to show that a crime occurred. With such potentially important consequences (e.g., whether or not someone goes to jail), the accuracy and consistency of the data recover is important. However, research indicates that under certain situations different DF tools can produce different results. Your goal in this project is to test the reliability of a set of DF tools under a variety of different conditions (e.g., different data types, storage drives, file allocation methods, etc.) in order to demonstrate if and when two tools might produce inconsistent results. For this project, you'll get to learn how different systems manage data, and how different tools recover from these different systems and present the results for the DF examiner. You'll also learn to construct a rigorous experiment and data recovery environment and demonstrate an appropriate "chain of evidence" that would be acceptable as evidence in legal proceedings. A starting publication to learn about some of the challenges in this area: Horsman, G., 2019. Tool testing and reliability issues in the field of digital forensics. Digital Investigation, 28, pp.163-175.

Resources

Background

An interest in low-level systems and learning more about storage systems.

Url

Difficulty Level

Moderate

Ethical Approval

None

Number Of Students

1

Supervisor

Mike Just

Keywords

cyber security, systems security, digital forensics

Degrees

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science
Bachelor of Science in Computer Systems
Master of Engineering in Software Engineering
Master of Science in Computer Science for Cyber Security
Master of Science in Computer Systems Management
Master of Science in Computing (2 Years)
Master of Science in Information Technology (Software Systems)
Master of Science in Network Security
Master of Science in Robotics
Master of Science in Software Engineering
Bachelor of Science in Computing Science
Bachelor of Engineering in Robotics
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science (Cyber Security)
Master of Science in Robotics with Industrial Application