Contact: Phil Hearn
Five local law enforcement officers are learning some unique investigative skills aimed at solving computer crimes this week during a three-day workshop at Mississippi State.
The free, three-day seminar, coordinated by MSU's Center for Computer Security Research, kicked off Wednesday morning [Aug. 4] with sessions on computer forensics and cyber crime taught by associate computer science and engineering professor Dave Dampier.
Other sessions were to focus on such topics as mobile forensics tools, PC file systems and imaging, DOS-based investigative techniques, Windows-based investigative software, encryption and decryption, and data hiding. Hands-on exercises with both software and hardware also were planned in the center's new computer forensics laboratory in Butler Hall.
"Computer evidence is new to most courts and most of them don't know about computer forensics," said Dampier, who teaches an MSU class on the subject. "With computer crimes, it's hard to catch somebody in the act of doing something."
He said investigators now use a forensics device called the Image Master, which can be plugged into home and office computers to copy all information contained on the machine's hard drive. Officers must produce warrants specifying the information they seek, however, before it can be used as evidence in a court of law.
"Just turning on a computer and looking at it taints the evidence," he noted.
Forensics is the study of evidence to support prosecution in criminal cases, and computer forensics is the same thing applied to computers. A shortage of trained computer forensic investigators, particularly at local levels of law enforcement, sparked the initiation of Dampier's course in 2003. His students are taught how to collect online evidence, dissect and analyze storage disks, keep detailed logs, protect the "chain of custody," and present expert testimony when a case goes to trial.
"With the increased ease with which an unscrupulous person can access the Internet and commit crimes, with and against computers, and the increased emphasis on homeland defense in this country, there is a growing need for individuals with the skills to investigate these crimes," he said.
Seminar participant and Starkville police detective Steve Lyle said his department now must rely on the expertise of such federal law enforcement agencies as the FBI to help solve local computer crimes.
"Every week now, we have some type of Internet or computer fraud," he said. "I've never actually seized a computer. But when we get the resources, they'll expect us to do it all."
Another participant, MSU police officer Denise Jimenez, said her department was particularly interested in Dampier's workshop "because of the growing number of computer crimes being committed on college campuses these days. There's a lot of information to absorb."
Other law enforcement personnel participating in the seminar were Starkville police officer Lee Upchurch, MSU police detective Brad Massey and Shannon Williams, a shift supervisor with the Oktibbeha County sheriff's office.