Sun Mar 30 20:46:44 UTC 2008

Collecting hard evidence is … hard

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Two interesting cases in the blog list today that discuss the same aspect of security – the difficulty of collecting hard evidence.

Rember that security is not simply to protect against those script kiddies. It is to protect against real human attackers. As Bruce Schneier reminds us in http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007⁄12/security_in_ten.html :-

But throughout history and into the future, the one constant is human nature. There hasn't been a new crime invented in millennia. Fraud, theft, impersonation and counterfeiting are perennial problems that have been around since the beginning of society. During the last 10 years, these crimes have migrated into cyberspace, and over the next 10, they will migrate into whatever computing, communications and commerce platforms we're using.

So, back to the theme. Info World has recently collected a top 10 list of bad corporate security behaviour. Number 7 states that “Handling breach details sloppily tips off the perp” and reminds us that a tipped-off perpetrator will be able to cover their tracks.

The FBI believes that Ukranian politician Dimitry Ivanovich Golubov is one such perp, who was able to wipe incriminating digital data when the police searched his apartment. Dimitry claims in a communication with the Washington Post Security Fix blog that although his data was indeed wiped by an EM pulse generator, it was accidentally triggered by the police themselves …

This officer has found Raskat system remote control. He decided that it is remote from my car alarm and started to push on it in order to find which one of parked nearby car it was. I have no car and it was remote from the system Raskat, and I have clearly said this to him, but he has not listened to me, and told me to be silent. And he pushed this button several time. It can be possible he has erased all information on purpose, in order to say that all evidences are all wiped off, or more likely due to stupidity.

This is all too good to make up …