Title: 2. Procedures for Corporate High-Tech Investigations
Course: IN 2005 Digital Forensics > Section: Module 2: Chapter 2 - Understanding Computer Investigations

Procedures for Corporate High-Tech Investigation

1. This section explains how to develop formal procedures and informal checklists to cover all issues important to high-tech investigations.

Employee Termination Case

1. The majority of investigative work for termination cases involves employee abuse of corporate assets.
2. What you need to conduct an Internet abuse investigation, including:
  - The organization’s Internet proxy server logs
  - Suspect computer’s IP address
  - Suspect computer’s disk drive
  - Your preferred computer forensics analysis tool
3. Steps to perform an Internet abuse investigation, including:
  - Use standard forensic analysis techniques and procedures
  - Use appropriate tools to extract all Web page URL information
  - Contact the network firewall administrator and request a proxy server log
  - Compare the data recovered from forensic analysis to the proxy server log
  - Continue analyzing the computer’s disk drive data
4. You need to conduct an e-mail abuse investigation, including:
  - An electronic copy of the offending e-mail that contains message header data
  - If available, e-mail server log records
  - For e-mail systems that store users’ messages on a central server, access to the server
  - Access to the computer so that you can perform a forensic analysis on it
  - Your preferred computer forensics analysis tool
5. Steps to perform an e-mail abuse investigation, including:
  - Use the standard forensic analysis techniques and procedures
  - Obtain an electronic copy of the suspect and victim’s e-mail folder or data
  - For Web-based e-mail investigations, use tools such as FTK’s Internet Keyword Search option to extract all related e-mail address information
  - Examine header data of all messages of interest to the investigation

Attorney-Client Privilege Investigations

1. Under attorney-client privilege (ACP)rules for an attorney, you must keep all findings confidential.
2. Many attorneys want printouts of the data you have recovered. You need to persuade and educate many attorneys on how digital evidence can be viewed electronically. You can also encounter problems if you find data as binary files.
3. Steps for conducting an ACP case, including:
  - Request a memorandum from the attorney directing you to start the investigation
  - Request a list of keywords of interest to the investigation
  - Initiate the investigation and analysis
  - For disk drive examinations, make two bit-stream images using different tools
  - Compare hash signatures on all files on the original and re-created disks
  - Methodically examine every portion of the disk drive and extract all data
  - Run keyword searches on allocated and unallocated disk space
  - For Windows OSs, use specialty tools to analyze and extract data from the Registry
  - For binary data files such as CAD drawings, locate the correct software product
  - For unallocated data recovery, use a tool that removes or replaces nonprintable data
  - Consolidate all recovered data from the evidence bit-stream image into well-organized folders and subfolders
4. Other guidelines for conducting ACP cases, including:
  - Minimize all written communications with the attorney
  - Any documentation written to the attorney must contain a header stating that it’s “Privileged Legal Communication—Confidential Work Product”
  - Assist the attorney and paralegal in analyzing the data
5. If you have difficulty complying with the directions, contact the attorney and explain the problem.
6. Always keep an open line of verbal communication.
7. If you’re communicating via e-mail, use encryption.

Media Leak Investigations

1. In the corporate environment, controlling sensitive data can be difficult.
2. Some of the considerations for media leak investigations, including:
  - Examine e-mail
  - Examine Internet message boards
  - Examine proxy server logs
  - Examine known suspects’ workstations
  - Examine all company telephone records
3. Steps to take for media leaks, including:
  - Interview management privately to get a list of employees who have direct knowledge of the sensitive data
  - Identify the media source that published the information
  - Review company phone records
  - Obtain a listing of keywords related to the media leak
  - Perform keyword searches on proxy and e-mail servers
  - Discreetly conduct forensic disk acquisitions and analysis
  - From the forensic disk examinations, analyze all e-mail correspondence and trace any sensitive messages to other people
  - Expand the discreet forensic disk acquisition and analysis
  - Consolidate and review your findings periodically
  - Routinely report findings to management

Industrial Espionage Investigations

1. All suspected industrial espionage cases should be treated as criminal investigations.
2. Staff needed for an industrial espionage investigation, including:
  - Computing investigator who is responsible for disk forensic examinations
  - Technology specialist who is knowledgeable of the suspected compromised technical data
  - Network specialist who can perform log analysis and set up network sniffers
  - Threat assessment specialist (typically an attorney)
3. Some of the guidelines for industrial espionage investigations, including:
  - Determine whether this investigation involves a possible industrial espionage incident
  - Consult with corporate attorneys and upper management
  - Determine what information is needed to substantiate the allegation
  - Generate a list of keywords for disk forensics and sniffer monitoring
  - List and collect resources needed for the investigation
  - Determine the goal and scope of the investigation
  - Initiate the investigation after approval from management
4. Some of the planning considerations for an industrial espionage investigation, including:
  - Examine all e-mail of suspected employees
  - Search Internet newsgroups or message boards
  - Initiate physical surveillance
  - Examine all facility physical access logs for sensitive areas
  - Determine suspect location in relation to the vulnerable asset
  - Study the suspect’s work habits
  - Collect all incoming and outgoing phone logs
5. The basic steps to perform industrial espionage investigations, including:
  - Gather all personnel assigned to the investigation and brief them on the plan
  - Gather the resources needed to conduct the investigation
  - Start the investigation by placing surveillance systems
  - Discreetly gather any additional evidence
  - Collect all log data from networks and e-mail servers
  - Report regularly to management and corporate attorneys
  - Review the investigation’s scope with management and corporate attorneys

Interviews and Interrogations in High-Tech Investigations

1. Becoming a skilled interviewer and interrogator can take many years of experience.
2. An interview is usually conducted to collect information from a witness or suspect about specific facts related to an investigation. Interrogation is the process of trying to get a suspect to confess to a specific incident or crime.
3. Your role as a computing investigator is to instruct the investigator conducting the interview on what questions to ask and what the answers should be.
4. Ingredients for a successful interview or interrogation, including:
  - Being patient throughout the session
  - Repeating or rephrasing questions to zero in on specific facts from a reluctant witness or suspect

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