"There is a significant national need for a published research and development agenda specifically for law enforcement cyber attack investigations," said Andrew Macpherson, program coordinator for the Technical Analysis Group (TAG) of ISTS which brought the group together. "The purpose of gathering these cyber crime experts was to prioritize the research and development areas previously identified by a survey of law enforcement officials, such as circumventing encryption, automated log analysis, and detecting IP spoofing." Cyber attacks are defined as computer attacks that can undermine the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of a computer or information resident on it.
Participants included cyber crime experts from the Department of Justice, the United States Secret Service, NASA, the New Hampshire Attorney General's Office, the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center, the National White Collar Crime Center, and investigators from New York, Florida, California, and South Carolina, as well as the San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California, San Diego, the University of New Haven, and Sleuth, a computer forensics firm.
Using data gathered during the 2002 and 2003 workshops ISTS will detail the ranked priorities and produce a national research and development agenda in the fall of 2003. In addition, ISTS will conduct a national outreach initiative to share the results of the project with investigative organizations, private industry, research institutions, and other parties. This needs based list for cyber attack investigative tools and technologies will give useful information to American industry, and others, for providing critical cyber crime solutions to the law enforcement community. "This guidebook will offer specifics about what cyber crime tools need to be developed," said Macpherson.
