The Network Factor in Proactive Digital Evidence Acquisition

Abstract

While cybercrime proliferates – becoming more complex and surreptitious – the tools and techniques used in performing digital investigations are still seriously lagging behind, effectively slowing down law enforcement agencies at large. In this paper we briefly describe the architecture of a comprehensive proactive digital investigation system that is termed as the Live Evidence Information Aggregator (LEIA). Particular focus is made on the importance of the efficiency of network communication in such a system in order to retrieve potentially evidentiary information remotely and with immediacy. We demonstrate the live evidence capturing capabilities of such a system highlighting the necessity for better throughput through the use of Peer-to-Peer Systems.