Date:11/07/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/07/11/stories/2007071160841400.htm

National

C-DAC trying to retrieve data

G. Anand

Thiruvananthapuram:

The Resource Centre for Cyber Forensics at the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) here is in the process of applying software tools developed by it, to analyse the contents of the computer hard disk and compact disks seized from the Bangalore home of the two London-Glasgow terror suspects, informed sources said on Tuesday.

The Karnataka police had sought C-DAC’s expertise to retrieve and copy files from the hard disk. Interpretation of the data will be the work of the intelligence agencies that are also investigating whether the suspects had any role in the December 2005 terrorist attack on the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. The police believe such a forensic analysis would yield crucial digital evidence.

C-DAC sent an expert to Bangalore on Monday with the latest version of ‘Cyber Check’, software developed by it to analyse digital data from a forensic angle. The software is being used to create a ‘mirror image’ of the high-capacity hard disk of the computer found. The captured image will be analysed.

The tool could be used to recover lost and deleted files. A “time-line analysis of normal, deleted and signature-mismatched files” will be possible.

In accordance with international protocol that is followed for the seizure of such a disk, the software will put a digital signature on the retrieved data in order that they cannot be altered and could be used as evidence in a court of law.

C-DAC has been developing cyber forensic tools and often lends its expertise to government agencies.