The digital forensics of portable electronic communication devices based on a Skype im session of a pocket PC for NGC

Abstract

Portable electronic communication devices can be used for many purposes and they are capable of integrating with ubiquitous computing (UC) infrastructures to carry on mobile multimedia communications. As those devices become prevalent, they incur potential network security threatening to organizations. Nowadays, the Skype is the most popular P2P VoIP application program, which is being used by millions of global users to place IP phone calls, transfer files, or communicate via instant messaging (IM). This phenomenon already generates imminent network security issues that are indispensable to digital forensics researchers or the law enforcement agencies worldwide. Cellular phones, smart phones, and personal digital assistants (PDAs) are the representative ones of those devices and there are some open sources or commercial software toolkits that can be utilized to proceed the forensics investigation concerning the electronic crimes in next generation communications (NGCs). A case review was conducted to illustrate the hidden digital trails within the PDA from the Registry of the Windows Mobile and volatile data in the RAM to discover the possible network security leakage scenarios that resulted in the vandalism of intangible digital assets of the organization. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.