Tools and Technology for Computer Forensics: Research and Development in Hong Kong (Invited Paper)

With the increased use of Internet and information technology all over the world, there is an increased amount of criminal activities that involve computing and digital data. These digital crimes (e-crimes) impose new challenges on prevention, detection, investigation, and prosecution of the corresponding offences. Computer forensics (also known as cyberforensics) is an emerging research area that applies computer investigation and analysis techniques to help detection of these crimes and gathering of digital evidence suitable for presentation in courts. This new area combines the knowledge of information technology, forensics science, and law and gives rise to a number of interesting and challenging problems related to computer security and cryptography that are yet to be solved. In this paper, we present and discuss some of these problems together with two successful cases of computer forensics technology developed in Hong Kong that enable the law enforcement departments to detect and investigate digital crimes more efficiently and effectively. We believe that computer forensics research is an important area in applying security and computer knowledge to build a better society.