Reflection on Anti-forensics

Reflection on Anti-forensics

Learning about digital forensics helped in grasping that technology has been helpful in the investigation of cases solved in the court of law. Indeed, I was more interested in the topic of Anti-forensics, which is one of the challenges faced in digital forensics because it hinders investigators from accessing certain computer information. As such, this course has aided me in understanding; terminologies applied in anti-forensics besides the incumbent techniques used.

In the first place, I learned some of the essential terms used in the anti-forensics field. For example, file extensions are a common term in the topic, which describes a set of three or more characters that go after the last dot in a filename (Waleed et al., 2020). File extensions, therefore, serve in the identification of data types and files in computer programs. Besides just learning the Identification process, I also got more knowledge about file signatures, the file signatures, and the role they play in anti-forensics. Based on the allusion derived from the Identification process, I noted that the file signatures are the characters appearing in the initial twenty bytes of a file. In digital forensic, the application programs use them to confirm file information before loading and processing the whole record.

Following a literature search, I did together with lessons learned in class; I was able to note that people, irrespective of its crucial role, cannot see the file header. Instead, I learned that in its significant role is instructing the computer, the type of file the header is implanted. On the other hand, although human beings cannot see the file header, different programs allow the humans to make changes in the data in the header for the computer to program that it is a unique type of file. This understanding helped me understand that the investigators may be unable to access relevant information they are looking for in the computers. For example, if the investigators are looking for data from a specific file format, they can easily skip important files they were looking for because the files already appear irrelevant. All this information helped me understand that anti-forensics is a primary challenge to any investigation.

I also gained more understanding of the techniques that are employed in anti-forensics or hiding of information in computers. For instance, encryption is one of the effective ways of hiding computer information. According to Kim et al. (2016), encryption employs the use of an algorithm to make data unreadable. My understanding of the encryption technique is that the programmers use a pair of keys so that some private data can be inaccessible to investigators or any other unauthorized person.

In essence, it was vital for me to learn more information about steganography. While digging deep to Steganography, I noted that it forms basing in storage information both as unused data or slightly used. As a result, the stored information hidden in the medium ought to be discovered to make it accessible. Further synthesis of the topic suggested that computing techniques employed in steganography are digital images, audio files, text files, as well as web pages (Zheng et al. 2017). For instance, data gets exchanged through images whereby a section of the image gets altered so that it cannot easily be identified. With steganography, huge information files can be hidden in images, audio, video, as well as texts. However, I also learned that there are other traditional steganography techniques employed, such as wax tablets and word shifting.

In conclusion, the topic of anti-forensics helped me understand the challenge investigators experience when they are looking for specific information on computers. The programmers know how to design gadgets or software that hide information or deny the accessory of the required information. I got more information about different techniques they employ to block the investigators from accessing computer information. Some of these techniques are encryption and steganography. Through these techniques, I can also hide some data on a computer.

Bibliography

Zheng, J., Tan, Y. A., Zhang, X., Liang, C., Zhang, C., & Zheng, J. (2017, July). An anti-forensics method against memory is acquiring for Android devices. In 2017 IEEE International Conference on Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) and IEEE International Conference on Embedded and Ubiquitous Computing (EUC) (Vol. 1, pp. 214-218). IEEE.

Lee, K., Hwang, H., Kim, K., & Noh, B. (2016). Robust bootstrapping memory analysis against anti-forensics. Digital Investigation, 18, S23-S32.

Waleed, J., Hasan, T. M., & Abbas, T. (2017, March). Comprehensive expansion in Anti-Forensics Techniques (AFTs) based on a compressed image. In 2017 Annual Conference on New Trends in Information & Communications Technology Applications (NTICT) (pp. 156-161). IEEE.