The reality of crime in cyberspace
by Vincent Ciccarello
In
the rapidly growing area of computer crime, police until now have
been left to their own devices in the retrieval of evidence from
hard disks, websites and networks.
But an Australian Research Council (ARC) grant is allowing UniSA’s Associate Research Professor Jill Slay and a team of the country’s top forensic computing experts to make the prosecution of computer crime more robust by developing forensic computing standards.
"It’s critical that law enforcers gather evidence and present it in a manner acceptable to the courts," Prof Slay said.
"The ARC grant will allow us to develop a testing regime for the validation and accreditation of forensic computing standards."
The role computers can play in criminal activity ranging from fraud, to child pornography and terrorism is well-known. Add to this the potential for criminals to communicate over the internet using Voice over Internet Protocol and the boom in "virtual living", and it is little surprise there has been an exponential growth in computer crime in the past decade.
"More and more people are leading lives as virtual residents of an online world where they socialise, buy and sell property and services, and take part in all sorts of recreational activities," Prof Slay said.
"Theft – of money and identities – from these virtual worlds and online gaming sites is one of the fastest growing crimes in Asia. It might be happening in cyberspace but the crime is very real."
Prof Slay said UniSA and its ARC partners – the National
Institute of Forensic Science, the NSW Police State Electronic
Evidence Branch, Australian Federal Police and South Australian
Police – are developing the standards as part of their "mapping out"
of a new discipline.
"We’re scientifically under-pinning forensic computing," she said. "With standards and a testing regime in place, police taking computer evidence to court can say, ‘This is what we did, we do the same thing every time, it’s scientific, and it’s repeatable’."
It is anticipated the standards will be set by the end of 2009.
Prof Slay said forensic computing forms part of the Systems for Safeguarding Australia theme in UniSA’s Centre of Excellence in Defence and Industry Systems Capabilities.
"We have expertise in a whole range of areas – robotics, unmanned aerial vehicles, forensic photography, improvised explosive devices and using systems engineering methodology to understand terrorism."