Michael Curry
Forensic computing by the forensic computer expert has become an increasingly important unit within the police organization chart due to the “exponential growth” that new forms of digital crime such as hacking, phishing or pharming are experiencing.
The Operational Group of the Forensic Computing section of the Central Criminalistics Unit of the General Police Commission of the Scientific Police bases its work on laboratory investigations through data recovery or “reverse engineering techniques”, consisting of knowing how they work the applications that have been used for criminal purposes.
The aforementioned police section was created in 2008 and already 46 people are integrated throughout Spain and 14 in the city. In addition, all its members have training in computer forensics, whether engineers, senior technicians or specialized personnel. They also usually request collaboration with other forensic computer scientists who can bring new approaches to investigations. The use of the origin and cause forensic engineers happen to be essential here.
Forensic Analysis
The main motivation of these agents is to be clear that today “all forms of crime begin or have a place in a digital device.” For the head of this police department, crimes against privacy in social networks are the main form of digital crime, in addition to scams derived from practices such as phishing or pharming or impersonation resulting from a hacker.
In this regard, he pointed out that, except in the case of the latter, the rest of criminal activities are usually organized in criminal groups with distribution of tasks. “The new forms of crime require advanced knowledge, especially in electronics and information technology,” added the head of the Central Criminalistics Unit.
- In addition, the internet has facilitated the “consolidation of classic forms of crime such as child pornography or fraud”, in this case, through online payment methods, said the expert. Despite this boom, people “are not fully aware” of the decrease in their privacy and intimacy due to the use of social networks on mobile devices and tablets.
The importance of the criminal investigation lies in the fact that the investigator has extensive and deep knowledge of the development of an investigation, taking into account the appropriate use of the resources and the steps to follow, as the case may be (the punishable fact) to investigate, starting of a good planning and coordination in search of proposed results, always supported by criminalistics, which allows to give the technical-scientific contribution (objective).
Investigation
The criminal investigation has as its main objective the search for truth through the historical reconstruction of the antecedents to determine how the event occurred, who, when and why it was committed.
Criminal Investigation Process
The multiple disciplines of human knowledge to achieve its objectives and purposes, requires the realization of a set of logical and sequential activities that facilitate the achievement of an objective.
- For this case, the method of scientific investigation of crime is nothing more than the so-called “general method of scientific investigation.”
The scientific investigation of the crime can assume two dimensions and in fact they must be present; the first refers to the set of procedures that are used to explain the phenomenon of crime, the offender, the victim and the actions of the State, which will reduce the signs of impunity, applying scientific and technical knowledge with them; It is what is called criminological research and can cover the study of various aspects such as the etiology, incidence, relationship, effects, trends, etc.
