A framework for proactive and reactive digital evidence recovery developed for financial institutions

3^rd International Conference on Forensic Research and Technology

October 06-08, 2014 Hilton San Antonio Airport, USA

Saviour Aheto

Accepted Abstracts: J Forensic Res

Abstract :

As banks strive to keep pace with both criminals they must develop robust strategies to combat cybercrime, whilst ensuring that they remain competitively placed within the financial sector. This paper presents a framework that can be adhered to by banks globally, enabling them to ensure that they are forensically ready for the challenges where there are wide-ranging regulatory and legislative systems to consider and there is a necessity to investigate breaches of security. Whilst reactive measures are essential in the cybercrime landscape, it is also essential to proactively review digital systems so that crime can be quickly detected, ultimately enabling the retrieval of money before it is lost (i.e. before criminals have collected it). The framework has been developed with the use of case studies of a number of African banks as they strive to ensure growth over multiple borders whilst protecting customer funds. Combined with many African nations? determination to proliferate technology use and corporate initiatives to expand client bases, it is essential that proactive and reactive digital evidence frameworks are utilised to engender customer and ultimately shareholder confidence whilst enabling expedient detection and the recovery of misappropriated funds. This framework offers a two-fold solution to enabling forensic readiness: The first being from a policy perspective; the second being from a practical and procedural perspective - offering implementable solutions. In many instances, there are financial pressures to consider from stakeholders who wish to protect assets yet limit expenditure. This framework offers, where possible, cost effective solutions that can be implemented as investigative technology. The challenges encountered and the solutions that the studied banks devised have been drawn together to form a proactive and reactive digital evidence strategy.

Biography :

Saviour Aheto is a Security Incident Response and Digital Forensics professional with a background in network architecture. He was instrumental in the formulation of digital forensic policy at Africa?s largest pan-African bank. He has co-written this paper with Chris Vaughan, who has ten years? experience in digital forensics and has written various white papers - and previously been awarded a runner up ?Article of the Year? accolade for a paper written for The Journal of Digital Investigations, an international publication.