cyberterrorism

1) Email evidence is some of the most important evidence that can be collected. It is the primary source of information gathering during a forensic sweep. (Haggerty, Haggerty, & Taylor, 2014). Emails are believed to be point to point, and because of this the writers are more candid with their thoughts. What many individuals don’t know is that there are many points of contact the email gets routed through, and it is easily traceable and readable even if deleted. Email forensics do not have to be reactive, enterprises can use them to proactively scan for the leaking of data or classified information. Forensic analysis, not just for email, is highly effective in determining and deterring Employee internet abuse, unauthorized disclosure of corporate information, industrial espionage and Criminal fraud and deception cases. The importance of email in digital forensics is understood by many departments, and because of this many have a laboratory that is dedicated to this. The staff here can sift through emails efficiently and present them in an easy to view fashion for cases. (Hayes. 2014).

Tools such as eMailTrackerPro can be used to identify the IP address of senders by analyzing the header data. (Banday, 2011). It also contains an abuse reporting feature which can automatically identify the ISP of the origin IP address of the sender. The ISP can then use this report and account of activity to prosecute or block the account holder. This is a very effective tool in putting a stop to spammers.

2) Computer forensics is the retrieval, analysis, and use of digital evidence in a civil or criminal investigation (Hayes, 2015).  The article that is summarized below discusses how a neighbor (Barry Ardolf) went on a vendetta against his other neighbors (Matt and Bethany Kostolnik), turning their lives into a living nightmare.  It started when the Kostolnik’s moved next door to Ardolf and their child wandered onto Ardolf’s property.  Upon returning the toddler to the Kostolnik’s, Mrs. Kostolnik witnessed Ardolf kissing the 4 year old on the mouth.  The Kostolinik’s reported the incident to the local authorities.  Ardolf was furious with the allegations and decided to unleash his computer hacking skills to inflict psychic damage on his neighbors to make them feel vulnerable in the own home.  Ardolf decided to get even with the Kostolnik’s by launching computer attacks them.  Ardolf went as far as creating fake social media accounts and link child pornography to the account to try and get Mr. Kostolnik fired from his law firm.  When the law firm caught wind of what was going on, they hired an outside law firm to look into the issue and found that there was an unknown device with access to the Kostolnik’s router.  The investigators asked the Kostolnik’s if they could put a packet sniffer on their device to try and get to the bottom of the incidents they were experiencing.  In May 2009, the US Secret Service came to the law office that Kostolnik worked and asked about several threatening emails that were sent from his Yahoo account, that were traced to his IP address addressing threating statement toward Vice President Joe Biden and other politicians.  Upon examination of the packet logs from the packet sniffer, it was found that the data surrounding the threating email traffic actually contained Ardolf’s name and his Comcast account.  With this information a search warrant was issued and the FBI was able to search Ardolf’s home finding physical evident of the crimes that he was trying to pin on the Kostolnik’s as well as hand written notes to the Kostolnik’s warning them of how dangerous he was and how he could ruin their life.  Through the use of computer forensics is was shown that Ardolf had unauthorized access to the Kostolnik’s home router and conducted the illegal activity to try and ruin the Kostolnik’s lives.  Ardolf was sentenced to an 18 year prison sentence for cyberterrorism.