Hacking has become a business and access to highly-skilled hackers to steal information or disrupt a company's network is a few dollars away.
This is the view of Jacques Malan, director of Facts Consulting, who says anyone can purchase customised spyware or malware off the Net and this puts very sophisticated and dangerous tools in the hands of people with little knowledge of IT.
During tomorrow's Security Summit, Malan will reveal 'a day in the life of a computer crime scene investigator' (CCSI).
The ITWeb Security Summit, now in its sixth year, will feature top international and local security experts, who will present at the Sandton Convention Centre until 12 May.
Malan will provide a glimpse of the types of investigations a CCSI does, and explain why information security principles are the cornerstone of a successful investigation and prosecution.
During his presentation, Malan will reveal some of the complexities CCSIs face and the effect of sound information security governance on cyber forensic investigations.
“This translates to a significant reduction in investigation cost and time as well as the increase in probability of finding and prosecuting perpetrators.”
According to Malan, South African legislation is driving security methodology to be more selective and specific in which electronic information is extracted and analysed.
“The right to privacy, as defined in our constitution, also plays a big role here,” he adds.
“It causes scenarios where standard off-the-shelf forensic software is not adequate for extracting relevant evidence; while protecting the person under investigation's right to privacy.”
While still at the CSIR Meraka Institute, Malan was a technical team leader in charge of the development and presentation of cyber forensic-related training to government and private sector entities.
He was also responsible for the development of the cyber forensic methodology used by the former DSO (Scorpions) and other commercial entities.
During this time, he was also part of the operational team in his capacity as cyber forensic investigator.
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