Computer Crime Scene Forensics

Vacca, John

ISBN 10: 1584500182 / ISBN 13: 9781584500186

Published by Charles River Media, 2001

About this Item

Used book that is in excellent condition. May show signs of wear or have minor defects.

Seller Inventory # 3766580-75

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Computer Crime Scene Forensics
• Publisher: Charles River Media
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1584500182
• ISBN 13: 9781584500186
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st.
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

Using personal computers as their weapons, hackers and criminals (some only 11 years old) have attacked the Internet, government agencies, financial companies, small businesses, and the credit card accounts of unsuspecting individuals. This completely updated book/CD package provides a complete overview of computer forensics from information security issues to "crime scene investigation," seizure of data, determining the "fingerprints" of the crime, and tracking down the criminals. The book's companion CD-ROM contains demos of the latest computer forensics software. Numerous exercises, case studies, and vignettes of actual crimes enhance the topics under discussion, and provide the reader with solutions to computer crime in the real world.

Review

The mightiest fortresses in the world can fail, and when that happens all you can do is figure out what went wrong, what damage was done, and by whom. If the castle was located in the right kind of kingdom--to take a metaphor too far--you can hope to prosecute the perpetrator. Computer Forensics: Computer Crime Scene Investigation explains how to gather evidence of computer crimes in such a way that it will be more likely to lead to a conviction in a criminal court. It's an interesting legal area--after all, it's almost always you, and not any law enforcement agency, doing the surveillance and evidence gathering on your computer systems--and John Vacca has done a fair bit of research. This book will probably expand your thinking on the subject of information security.

On the other hand, though Vacca gives good general advice (don't lose volatile information by shutting a compromised machine down mid-attack; do be prepared to translate memory dumps into jury-readable form), he sometimes meanders into generalisations and irrelevancies. It's certainly scary that terrorists distribute their plans via public Web sites, but that fact is hardly helpful to someone wanting to prosecute the guy who vandalised the corporate Web site. Similarly interesting, but practically irrelevant to most of us, are discussions of high-energy radio frequency (HERF) and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons that can knock out information systems from a distance. More focus on evidence collection in organisational computing environments would make this book useful, rather than just generally informative. --David Wall (Amazon.com)

Topics covered: how to gather evidence of a hack attack after the fact, and a lot of general-interest information on the state of crime and law-enforcement in computer technology. Coverage is almost all general in nature, dealing with how to formulate a strategy and deal with events without getting into details of any operating system or computing environment.