Editorial–Volume 2, No 1 (2021) of the IJCFATI

This article introduces volume 2, no 1 (2021) for the International Journal of Cyber Forensics and Advanced Threat Investigations. The article outlines some insights, updates and summarizes the articles published in the issue.

Scraping Airlines Bots: Insights Obtained Studying Honeypot Data

Airline websites are the victims of unauthorised online travel agencies and aggregators that use armies of bots to scrape prices and flight information. These so-called Advanced Persistent Bots (APBs) are highly sophisticated. On top of the valuable information taken away, these huge quantities of requests consume a very substantial amount of resources on the airlines' websites. In this work, we propose a deceptive approach to counter scraping bots. We present a platform capable of mimicking airlines' sites changing prices at will. We provide results on the case studies we performed with it. We have lured bots for almost 2 months, fed them with indistinguishable inaccurate information. Studying the collected requests, we have found behavioural patterns that could be used as complementary bot detection. Moreover, based on the gathered empirical pieces of evidence, we propose a method to investigate the claim commonly made that proxy services used by web scraping bots have millions of residential IPs at their disposal. Our mathematical models indicate that the amount of IPs is likely 2 to 3 orders of magnitude smaller than the one claimed. This finding suggests that an IP reputation-based blocking strategy could be effective, contrary to what operators of these websites think today.

Exploring the Shift from Physical to Cybercrime at the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The novel coronavirus has made an impact on virtually every aspect of our lives. The current study utilizes secondary data to identify patterns and trends related to shifting crime from the physical to the cyber domain. With millions, if not billions, people staying at home, attackers now look for new ways to commit crimes. Our findings indicate that while a lot of crimes such as robbery, assault, rape, and murder have declined at the beginning of the pandemic, we are also witnessing a rise in cybercrime, vehicle theft, and domestic violence. The current study looks specifically at phishing and what new trends are observed due to COVID-19. The current work is grounded in routine activity theory and demonstrates its relevance to both the physical and cyberspace. The implications of our work can be used by scholars who want to continue researching this new phenomenon. Practitioners can utilize our findings to look for ways to improve the corporate security posture by protecting the employees and customers working from home. Developing new phishing training and awareness programs should be focused around possible scenarios involving COVID-19. Our study suggests victims are more likely to fall prey to those during times of fear and uncertainty like the current pandemic.

The Cybersecurity Aspects of New Entities Need a Cybernetic, Holistic Perspective

In our connected world security and proof (evidence constituted in Verifiable Credentials (VC, W3C)) is distributed over what an individual can attest, what my objects tell about me (that is why AI = inferences from that data, is so important), and my behavior: “apply shaving foam” is a number in coelition.org. It is clear that we can no longer isolate the notion of security as in securing devices or securing infrastructure. In this brief article which is the background to a number of workshops that the authors and the Journal will host together, we sketch what we believe to be the end of a paradigm of a government model that has outsourced capabilities to the market. It is in the process of privatizing its last public capability: identity management. This is causing tremendous stress in systems, services, organizational procedures, and individuals. We propose a holistic perspective, distributing security at two points: at the device level and a moral movement at a societal level. As a time out to create room to discuss this broadly, we propose a particular model of SSI and disposable identities.

Cyber Forensics on Internet of Things: Slicing and Dicing Raspberry Pi

Any device can now connect to the Internet, and Raspberry Pi is one of the more popular applications, enabling single-board computers to make robotics, devices, and appliances part of the Internet of Things (IoT). The low cost and customizability of Raspberry Pi makes it easily adopted and widespread. Unfortunately, the unprotected Raspberry Pi device—when connected to the Internet—also paves the way for cyber-attacks. Our ability to investigate, collect, and validate digital forensic evidence with confidence using Raspberry Pi has become important. This article discusses and presents techniques and methodologies for the investigation of timestamp variations between different Raspberry Pi ext4 filesystems (Raspbian vs. UbuntuMATE), comparing forensic evidence with that of other ext4 filesystems (i.e., Ubuntu), based on interactions within a private cloud, as well as a public cloud. Sixteen observational principles of file operations were documented to assist in our understanding of Raspberry Pi’s behavior in the cloud environments. This study contributes to IoT forensics for law enforcement in cybercrime investigations.

Data Security for the SME

Whilst much discussion takes place within the Cyber Security Industry, and at annual events, such as yearly Infosecurity show held in London, with emphasis on the corporate world of security, very little attention given to the often forgotten (ignored) smaller enterprise and millions (billions) of end-users who face the very same cyber-threats on an everyday basis. However, this imposition is further compounded by the fact that generally, most of those within the SME sector, and ordinary end-user individuals can be deficient when it comes to cyber-defences, with a much lower level of cybersecurity savvy skills, which by inference exposes a soft-belly of low hanging fruit, manifesting in a significant surface of attack open to abuse by cybercriminals. In the current age of insecurity, such exposures are particularly noteworthy as threats posed by the potential of encountering a Ransomware attack may be concluded to be significant. This paper looks to outline the threats of the current age of 2020 posed by Ransomware and focuses on how the overlooked SME and Individuals may secure their most precious data object, and their business with affordable, simplistic tools and practices.

Impact of Tools on the Acquisition of RAM Memory

When responding to a security incident in a system, several basic principles must be followed regarding the collection of pieces of evidence from the system. The capture of these pieces of evidence has to be done according to its order of volatility. In this sense, RAM memory constitute the most important element to capture, given its extreme volatility. RAM memory must be acquired and analyzed because the data it holds, which may belong to the system itself or to any other device connected to it, can survive a certain amount of time in it. Since RAM is a constantly changing element, it must be stood out that any action carried on the system under analysis will modify the contents of the RAM. In this article a comparative and an objective analysis has been carried out, showing the impact that the execution of some tools for the capture of RAM has on the system. This comparative study details both the private shared workspaces, for each of the processes executed by each of the tools used.

A Forensic Analysis of Home Automation Devices (FAHAD) Model: Kasa Smart Light Bulb and Eufy Floodlight Camera as Case Studies

The adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) devices is rapidly increasing with the advancement of network technology, these devices carry sensitive data that require adherence to minimum security practices. The adoption of smart devices to migrate homeowners from traditional homes to smart homes has been noticeable. These smart devices share value with and are of potential interest to digital forensic investigators, as well. Therefore, in this paper, we conduct comprehensive security and forensic analysis to contribute to both fields—targeting a security enhancement of the selected IoT devices and assisting the current IoT forensics approaches. Our work follows several techniques such as forensic analysis of identifiable information, including connected devices and sensor data. Furthermore, we perform security assessment exploring insecure communication protocols, plain text credentials, and sensitive information. This will include reverse engineering some binary files and manual analysis techniques. The analysis includes a data-set of home automation devices provided by the VTO labs: (1) the eufy floodlight camera, and (2) the Kasa smart light bulb. The main goal of the technical experiment in this research is to support the proposed model.

Making the Invisible Visible – Techniques for Recovering Deleted SQLite Data Records

Forensic analysis and evidence collection for web browser activity is a recurring problem in digital investigation. It is not unusual for a suspect to cover his traces. Accordingly, the recovery of previously deleted data such as web cookies and browser history are important. Fortunately, many browsers and thousands of apps used the same database system to store their data: SQLite. Reason enough to take a closer look at this product. In this article, we follow the question of how deleted content can be made visible again in an SQLite-database. For this purpose, the technical background of the problem will be examined first. Techniques are presented with which it is possible to carve and recover deleted data records from a database on a binary level. A novel software solution called FQLite is presented that implements the proposed algorithms. The search quality, as well as the performance of the program, is tested using the standard forensic corpus. The results of a performance study are discussed, as well. The article ends with a summary and identifies further research questions.

Editorial–Inaugural Issue of the IJCFATI

This article introduces the inaugural issue for the International Journal of Cyber Forensics and Advanced Threat Investigations. The article outlines the journal’s aims and scope and summarizes the articles published in the issue.