Issue 12 - Out now!

Here's a quick review of some of the main articles within Issue 12

If you have anything to do with digital forensics, Issue 12 is something that you will want. Subscribe today to ensure you get digital access, or if you want, subscribe to the print edition. Find out more at our subscriptions pages.

Here's just a few of the fantastic articles inside Issue 12...

First Responders & Forensic Capabilities
Why we must look to first response and digital forensics to protect and defend our enterprise and global operations.

The fact of the matter is, be it for domestic purpose, or business related interests, society has become dependent on technology in the guise of applications,servers, and infrastructure to support our very existence. In the case of our domestic dependencies, this can range from the simple use of a low cost Voice over IP (VoIP) solution providing low cost calls, television via the Internet, right through to those much taken for granted, always on services such as electricity, gas, and water supplies; all of which have their own infrastructure related dependencies. Then we come to businesses, this really does start to ramp up when one considers just how tied into technology they are, with an increasing, and growing dependency on an infrastructure which was never actually designed to carry such a heavy load of business related activities; AKA the Internet.

Reverse Engineering PERL2EXE Back to Perl
Perl2Exe is a program which converts Perl source code to standalone Windows executable files which hide the Perl code. When a forensic investigator encounters a Perl2Exe program (for example malware) it can take a lot of effort to analyse these files. This article describes a new and easy to follow approach to recover the full Perl source code from these Perl2Exe executable files, making the analysis of these files much easier.

Perl2Exe converts the source code of the Perl script by packing it inside a single executable together with a Perl interpreter. The Perl source code is included inside the executable in encrypted form and thus it cannot easily be recovered from the executable. In the past there have been a couple of other projects to retrieve the Perl source code from Perl2Exe executable files (see boxout 1). However, none of these projects work with the current versions of Perl and Perl2Exe. In the past couple of years there have been a number of Perl2Exe versions released (see boxout 2) and each new version seems to break the previously found solutions to recover the Perl source code.

Mobile Devices & Evil Twins
We all have mobile devices we carry with us on a daily basis, be it a mobile phone, tablet pc or even our vehicles; it would seem over the last 5-10 years there has been a growing trend in taking our data everywhere with us, anything from cached login credentials to pictures and even valuable business contacts. But how secure is the data and what do our devices do when we are not looking? Could there be an Evil Twin in your area?

Ethical Hacking
What place do hackers have in today’s society, and is it ethical?

Another one got caught today; it’s all over the papers. “Teenager Arrested in Computer Crime Scandal”, “Hacker Arrested after Bank Tampering”... But did you, in your three-piece psychology and 1950’s techno brain, ever take a look behind the eyes of the hacker? Did you ever wonder what made him tick, what forces shaped him, what may have moulded him?

Hands on The UFED Touch
A new interface and new functionality improve an already tried and trusted mobile forensics tool...

In response to a few comments we received we have decided to try and provide tutorials on some of the more popular tools in use generally. This is by no means an endorsement nor is it any form of validation of any product, even by inference. The articles are purely meant to be informative and instructional only. If we have got the balance wrong and they are appearing too advertorial, then let us know.

Plus all the regular features, news, Robservations, our legal section and Apple Autopsy...

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