Financial Statement Fraud Detection and Investigation in Digital Environment

This chapter discusses some of the stages involved in detecting and investigating financial statement fraud in the digital environment. It emphasizes the human element aspects – the fraudster and the forensic investigator, their skills and capability. The explanation focuses specifically on the context of financial statement fraud detection and investigation which requires the accounting knowledge of the investigator. It also highlights the importance of the investigator to be a skeptic and have an inquiring mind of who had the opportunity to perpetuate the fraud, how the fraud could have been perpetrated, and the motive(s) to do so.

Digital Steganography Security

Steganography has been considered as a major instrument used for an unauthorized and destructive purpose such as crime and warfare, and forensics has been used for a constructive purpose such as crime detection and fraud detection. Hence, the combination of both steganography and forensics plays a major role in the present internet era for information exchange between two parties. It has been propelled to the forefront of the current security techniques. The main objective of the technique is to provide an imperceptible way of transferring secret messages to the recipient. Another issue to be noted is that the term steganography completely differs from cryptography. The above-stated analysis is used in digital forensics. There are many steganography software tools available for ordinary computer users.

Development and Various Critical Testing Operational Frameworks in Data Acquisition for Cyber Forensics

Digital forensics is the science of preserving and analyzing digital data; this data can then be used in court cases as well as for crime detection and prevention. Digital forensics began in the 1970s and was initially used as a tool for fighting financial crime. Today, with computers and digital devices being an integral part of our professional and private lives, digital forensics are used/needed in a wide variety of disputes. Data Acquisitions is described and discuss different techniques or methodology obtain the data, facts, and figures from different resource and at a different level of the system.

Digital Forensics and Data Mining

Digital forensic experts need to identify and collect the data stored in electronic devices. Further, this acquired data has to be analyzed to produce digital evidence. Data mining techniques have been successfully implemented in various applications across the domains. Data mining techniques help us to gain insight from a large volume of data. It helps us to predict the pattern, classify the data, and other various aspects of the data based on the users' perspective. Digital forensics is a sophisticated area of research. As the information age is revolutionizing at an inconceivable speed and the information stored in digital form is growing at a rapid rate, law enforcement agencies have a heavy reliance on digital forensic techniques that can provide timely acquisition of data, zero fault data processing, and accurate interpretation of data. This chapter gives an overview of the tasks involved in cyber forensics. It also discusses the traditional approach for digital forensics and how the integration of data mining techniques can enhance the efficiency and reliability of the existing systems used for cyber forensics.

A Compendium of Cloud Forensics

The cloud computing environment is one of the most promising technologies in the development of computing resources. The cloud service providers provide almost every resource for computing to their users through the internet. With all its advantages, cloud computing has major security issues. Especially in the case of public clouds, anyone can misuse the services for performing unlawful activities. The traditional approaches used for cyber forensics and network forensics are not adequate for the cloud environment because of many technical constraints. There is a need for setting up effective countermeasures that can help an investigator to identify and track unlawful activities happened in a cloud environment. Cloud forensics is an emerging area of research where the researchers aim to provide effective digital forensic techniques that help in the investigation of digital crimes in a cloud environment. The cloud environment helps to extract data even from devices that are not physically accessible. However, cloud forensics is not as easy as it seems; a lot of the success depends on the cloud service model implemented in the context. Getting the support of cloud service providers in accessing the potential sources of evidence necessary for investigation is also a major concern. Another critical aspect of cloud forensics is dealing with legal issues. This chapter discusses the basic concepts of cloud forensics, its challenges, and future directions.

Cyber Forensics Evolution and Its Goals

This chapter includes the evolution of cyber forensics from the 1980s to the current era. It was the era when computer forensics came into existence after a personal computer became a viable option for consumers. The formation of digital forensics is also discussed here. This chapter also includes the formation of cyber forensic investigation agencies. Cyber forensic life cycle and related phases are discussed in detail. Role of international organizations on computer evidence is discussed with the emphasize on Digital Forensic Research Workshop (DFRWS), Scientific Working Group on Digital Evidence (SWDGE), chief police officers' involvement. Authenticity-, accuracy-, and completeness-related pieces of evidence are also discussed. The most important thing that is discussed here is the cyber forensics data.

Digital Crime Evidence

With the advent of computers, there came computer-related crimes; hence, there comes the need for cybercrime judicial proceedings. And for any trial, evidence plays an instrumental role in bringing the victim to justice. So, there is a need for digital evidence. Digital crime evidence forms a core for the field of computer forensics. Breaking down the term digital crime evidence to be understood in simple words, it is the collection of data and information that plays a crucial role in digital crime investigation and that is usually stored and transmitted in electronic formats. Digital evidence is defined as any data stored or transmitted using a computer that supports or refute a theory of how an offense occurred or that address critical elements of the offense such as intent or alibi. This data is commonly a combination of text, audio, images, and videos. This evidence is generally invisible, fragile, time-sensitive, and integrity will be lost if they are mishandled.

Digital Terrorism Attack

In this rapidly growing era of technology, terrorist organizations do not ultimately depend on weapons, army, bombs, and lethal weapons to inflict terror. As the entire earth is developing at a rapid pace, so do the terrorists. The strategies adopted by them have become cannier and more sinister. In addition to that, they no longer involve in training, making tedious plans, undergoing physical training, and subjecting their allies to physical attacks. Rather, they impose serious threats by attacking their victims by vandalizing the online infrastructure. This can be done conveniently from any part of the globe, thus enabling them to use the dark side of the internet. This chapter focuses on digital terrorism attacks, its impact, and it furnishes certain methods for prevention.

Current Challenges of Digital Forensics in Cyber Security

The digital age has undoubtedly revolutionized the life and work of people. However, this sheen of digital technology remains challenged by the spate of cybercrimes that imperil the privacy and data of the end-users. The alarming rise in cybercrimes has become a major concern for cyber specialists. In this grim context, digital forensics has emerged as a boon for cyber specialists because it has proven to be an effective means for investigating cyber-attacks. This chapter reviews the existing tools and approaches in the field of digital forensics in cybersecurity. This chapter also discusses the current challenges and problems that are faced by a forensic investigator. In addition, it enlists the different categories of digital forensics. The study concludes by underlining the importance and the need for extensive research in digital forensic tools.

Forensic Case Studies

In this chapter, the authors collected and defined different types of case studies based on cyber forensics. They tried to gather the latest as well as the oldest case studies. This chapter will help those who want to study different categories of cyber care and their forensics studies. The following scenarios are specific examples of the problems that have been faced by various organizations in the past. For reasons of client confidentiality and legal sensitivity, actual names have been changed.