The Challenges of Digital Forensics in the Dark Web
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Abstract – A specific area of forensic science called “digital forensics” focuses on recovering and analysing data from digital devices connected to cybercrimes. Initially used to refer to computer forensics, the term “digital forensics” has evolved to include the in-depth analysis of devices that hold digital data. As a result, it is currently defined as collecting, safeguarding, evaluating, and documenting digital evidence to, if necessary, present it in court. Selling personally identifiable information, illegal substances, weapons, and criminal enterprise, including terrorism and assassinations, have all found a home on the dark web. Due to the many layers of security and encryption on the dark web, it is challenging for “cybersecurity law enforcement” to identify the criminal activity of specific people.
The dark web is a unique area of the deep web that is completely hidden from the outside world and only accessible through a particular browser. The dark web’s use of encryption and anonymity presents one of the most considerable challenges for politicians and law enforcement. Additionally, it is challenging for digital forensics to follow the digital footprints of cybercriminals due to the difficulties in tracking the sites and cryptocurrency transactions.
I. INTRODUCTION
Technology has become prevalent in every aspect of life, as we have witnessed rapid growth in “Information and Communication Technology or ICT”. Advanced tools such as “Cloud-Based Services (CBSs)”, “Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs)”, “Internet of Things (IoT) solutions”, and “communication networks” has brought a variety of benefits to society. Simultaneously, governmental services and the commercial transaction has rapidly developed, revolutionizing the lifestyle of individuals within those societies. The development in technology has also increased the threats of cyber security affecting the life of people. Approximately 2 million cases of “computer misuse offences” and 3.6 million cases of fraud have been noticed in a year by the “Office for National Statistics”.
Borderless cybercrime and dark web tools have posed a serious challenge to law enforcement because of the enormous volume of data, cutting-edge hardware and software technologies, dispersed nature of digital devices, anti-forensic tactics, virtualization, and distributed evidence [1]. The easy accessibility to individuals in signing up for could services with nominal information and the deployment of “IP anonymity” have increased the difficulties in determining the perpetrator. As a result, cases need “National and international development finance institutions or DFIs” and establishing a backlog of cybercrime cases for LEAs.
Recently, the challenges of performing digital forensics on “IoT devices” are due to incompetence in extracting meaningful information from the devices.
On the other hand, the Dark web has recently become a hotbed for criminals making financial transactions with cryptocurrencies and various illegal activities. Digital forensics cannot trace the perpetrator due to the multiple layers of encryption and anonymity of the users. The entry of the Silk Road into the “Tor network” has facilitated criminal activities such as money laundering, terrorism and many more [2]. The trade of illegitimate products has been around on the clear web for a long time, along with substantial investigation techniques. The visible net and WWW provide LEAs with improved traceability than ACNs such as “I2P” and “Tor”. Additionally, the “cross-border legislation” among the exchange point of the internet has biome another significant issue for forensics [3]. Despite having the “legal permissions” from the “US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI)”, law enforcement has been unable to collect evidence due to encryption and anonymity, which is termed as “going dark”.
The “automated analysis of textual content” and “authorship attribution” has been presented to identify the criminals despite the anonymity and encryption. Text analysis has been highly effective as the textual content is readily available, along with the continuous development of the ACNs and growth of the user base [4]. The study has aimed to address the emerging issues of digital forensics in dark web scanning and determining the perpetrator of various illegitimate activities in the dark web due to encryption and anonymity. It has also discussed probable methods for mitigating challenges and ways to evaluate the appropriateness of alternative procedures.
Methodology
Research methods are scientific research designs generally focused on solving research problems and questions. The research method helps determine an appropriate strategy for conducting a transparent and adequate research process to collect essential data. In this research, secondary data has been used to analyse the challenges of digital forensics in the case of dark web activities. It has helped collect information from authentic sources such as Google Scholar to investigate the reason behind the difficulties faced by law enforcement in detecting criminals and probable techniques, which can help to improve the digital forensics process.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
A. Review
Digital Forensic
Digital forensics is a specific branch of forensic science that generally concentrates on recovering and investigating materials found in digital devices associated with cybercrimes. Digital forensics was, at the initial stage, synonymous with Computer forensics; however, it has expanded to the detailed examination of devices containing digital data [6]. Digital forensics recovers removed partitions from digital media and gains information about the deleted files allowing it to determine the malicious activity of individuals. Therefore, it is now described as the process of determining, preserving, assessing and documenting digital evidence, helping present evidence to the court of law if required [7]. It helps uncover and interpret electronic information to preserve evidence in its original form. It performs structured by accumulating and validating digital data to reconstruct past events. It helps crime agencies follow the evidence and solve crimes virtually.
Digital forensics aids in recovering information such as photos, documents and emails from various data storage devices in case it is damaged, deleted or manipulated. It contains various techniques to recover the information that cyber criminals intentionally hide [8]. On the contrary, the dark web provides protected and secured communication channels for classified governmental activity. “Reverse Steganography” analyses the data hashing found in the specific file, which changes the “string of data” [8]. “Stochastic Forensics” aids in reconstructing digital activity along with “Cross-drive Analysis” and “Live Analysis”. Recently, people have been increasingly aware of the essentiality of “personal privacy protection”, and the “network traffic” has been encrypted with “HTTPS”. Additionally, “endpoint browsers” usually deliver “privacy-protected modes” for the users allowing them for “Trace-free” browsing [9]. Due to the easy availability of the dark web to individuals, law enforcement remains unaware of illegal activities. The dark web provides a wide range of resources, which require the utilization of a specific browser such as Tor [10]. The browser is designed to protect the users’ private information, ensuring anonymity and leading to an increasing rate of cybercrime.
The dark web has become a hub for selling personally identifiable data, drugs, guns, and activities such as assassinations and terrorism [11]. It poses a significant threat to “cybersecurity law enforcement” to determine the criminal activities of individuals due to the numerous layers of security and encryption in the dark web.
Challenges of digital forensics in the dark web
The “World Wide Web or WWW” hosts a massive connection of web pages accessible by computers connected through the internet. However, the web consists of the surface web and the deep web. The surface web is easily accessible by internet users through Yahoo, Google and various search engines [12]. It usually delivers only 4% of the search results, while the other 96% is the deep web. Digital forensics has recorded evidence identifying the steady growth of criminal activities on the dark web: however, unable to acquire substantial quantitative data to take appropriate steps [13].
A specific portion of the deep web is only accessible through a specific browser and wholly concealed from the outside, known as the dark web. One of the biggest hurdles that policymakers and law enforcement face is the anonymity and the encryption techniques of the dark web [14]. In addition, the difficulty in tracking the sites and crypto transactions makes it difficult for digital forensics to track the digital footsteps of cybercriminals.
Encryption and anonymity
The user’s activity on the dark web remains completely anonymous, making it challenging to acquire essential data regarding cybercrimes. It makes it harder to track criminals who use this space to facilitate nefarious activities such as drug trafficking, terrorism financing, money laundering and cryptocurrencies that are often interlinked [15]. The dark web recounts users’ information through various servers to secure identity. The intelligence agencies are having significant issues deciding the crimes’ jurisdiction as there is no definite concept of cyber terrorism [16]. The danger of the dark web is multidimensional, and the emergent threats are linked. Digital forensics cannot track the location or establish an identification of a specific criminal, making it challenging to establish jurisdiction to act.
Cryptocurrency transaction
Most financial transactions are made in cryptocurrencies on the dark web, further ensuring anonymity to the users. Blockchain technology is the underlying technology of cryptocurrencies, which works as a “digital ledger” for financial transactions distributed in the network in which blocks are secured with cryptography. Cryptocurrencies hide cybercriminals’ activities, as tracking the transactions made through Bitcoins is impossible [17]. It records data of the transaction in a way that makes it impossible to hack or modify. As a result, Bitcoin transactions have increased numerous illegal activities of terrorists and cyber criminals on the dark web [18]. Using cryptocurrencies to finance terrorism or illegal activity has made it harder for digital forensics to track the trail of money to gather evidence.
Difficulty in tracking
Dark websites are active for a certain period to reduce the probability of tracking. Many sites only remain active for 200-300 days, while few remain active for less than two months [19]. Therefore, it is highly tedious for digital forensics to track criminal activities across them.
Possible digital forensic processes against cybercrime
SIFT workstation
The “SIFT workstation” contains various forensic tools and “open-source incident response,” allowing investigators to perform meticulous digital forensic investigations. It helps examine the digital evidence in various settings and can match any “forensic tool suite” and incident responses. SIFT provides several tools for network and memory investigation, a file system which aids in digital forensic
investigation [20]. The workstation has “deep-dive digital forensic” techniques and improved incident response competencies, which can be easily acquired using various “open-source tools”. The tools are freely available and frequently updated, which can be an advantage for digital forensics in using this tool [21]. It helps the investigator determine threats and act appropriately to contain them. It delivers advanced capabilities to the users for assessing network evidence, memory images, file systems and many more.
Open computer forensic architecture
The “Open Computer Forensics Architecture or OCFA” is a framework for “distributed open-source computer forensics”, which is utilized for investigating digital media within a “digital forensics laboratory environment”. The OFCA incorporate various open-source tools of forensic investigation such as “The Sleuth Kit”, “Scalpel”, “Photorec”, “libmagic”, “GNU Privacy Guard”, “objdump”, and “exiftags” [22]. It is an automated system, which can dissect complex files and extract “metadata” from them, creating various indexes of forensic images of computers. It generally uses the “PostgreSQL” database for information storage and a backend for the “Linux platform” [23]. It consists of various collaborating processes called modules specialized in certain types of files. It aids in adding new information and processes the current information to derive new data, which is processed by a specific module and sent to a router. The router then decides the subsequent processing of the evidence by analysing its associated metadata [24]. Hence, OCFA can recursively process images until all the information has been extracted and embedded into the evidence.
OSINT tools for dark web scanning
Forensics investigators and law enforcement officers, for collecting and assessing open-source intelligence, use Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) tools like “Maltego”. The OSINT tools help automate the searches of diverse “public data” sources with one click [25]. It helps in collecting information from diverse sources and utilizes various transforms to deliver graphical results. The transforms are in-build and can be customized based on the requirements of the users [26]. As a result, it can help digital forensics simultaneously gather a wide range of data from various dark websites.
Evaluation of the mitigation process of digital forensics
Digital forensics need inadequate access to the dark web to follow the digital footprints of the cyber criminals and get a hold of their network to analyse the transaction and identify co-conspirators [27]. The dark web scanning tools generally produce a vast amount of data that facilitates using OSINT tools to highlight the links between the criminals and profiles. The evaluation of the mitigation process lies in the substantial evidence in tracking the transaction trail, which is made in cryptocurrencies and identifying the threat actors [28]. The identification of specific organizations and assets such as “drafts of patents”, “research papers”, and “confidential memos” can be determined using these tools, which highlight the efficiency of the probable techniques [28]. SIFT and OSINT tools help scan the dark web and accumulate and analyze intelligence to prevent cyber threats.
B. Research Gap and Findings
The study assesses various challenges digital forensics faces while tracking cybercriminals over the dark web. The research has elaborated on the issues law enforcement faces due to the encryption and anonymity techniques of dark websites, which facilitate criminal activities and transactions of cryptocurrencies [29]. However, it has not investigated various crimes related to the dark web and the techniques of digital forensics that have already been employed to identify the criminals. It could have helped analyse the existing process of law enforcement investigations and provided a comprehensive insight regarding the need for improvement.
The dark web is immune to surveillance as the IP addresses are rerouted to hide the real identity of the users. The primary requirement of fighting cybercriminals is to comprehend the nature of crimes and the forensic attributes of the users’ digital information depicting patterns in the darknet markets [30]. The dark web intelligence market has been projected to reach around USD 840 million by 2026 with a CAGR of 20.1%. Dark web intelligence is prevalent in “cyber threat intelligence” as it assesses required security insights to prevent cyber threats. Dark web activity has crossed the boundary of countries, making it essential to collaborate among agencies as it is cross-jurisdiction [31]. “Dark web intelligence” helps in “cyber risk analysis” and “counter-terrorism” using dark web forums.
Moreover, it has been involved in activities such as “military intelligence”, using it as a medium to exchange confidential data. Using intelligence tools, law enforcement monitors and control unlawful activities to prevent cyber threats [32]. Recently, international cybercrimes have been continuously increasing, with underground suppliers offering easy access to various tools and services needed for carrying out cybercrimes and programming frameworks [33]. Moreover, law enforcement needs to provide its personnel with significant dark web training to facilitate primary familiarity with digital evidence. Along with the continuous growth of technology, the dependency on digital evidence and digital forensics is continuously growing [34]. Thus, it is essential to focus on the improvement and efficacy of digital forensics. It started as computer professionals who performed task-oriented activities without formal training or tools [34]. Recently, digital forensics has focused on quality management to improve the techniques of evidence handling with the integration of scientific processes, which has helped in error mitigation, verification methodologies and tool testing.
Nowadays, digital forensics is the application of a transparent digital process that aids in gaining data’s original meaning in a court of law. Forensically sound highlights specific standards for presenting evidence in court, which is not always possible through digital forensic techniques with strict scientific techniques [35]. Digital forensics has been the cause of wrongful conviction cases in various countries, similar to other forensic disciplines. The government has focused on integrating advanced tools and systems to ensure the validity of digital evidence [36]. On the other hand, technological advances pose numerous threats to cyber security, which has a substantial impact on enterprises, online banking, government systems and critical infrastructure.
III. DISCUSSION
The advancement of communication and digital technologies has substantially eradicated barriers between conventional forms of media. Additionally, the emergence of social networking sites, the internet, and mobile technology has changed our lifestyles and global business. It has provided many opportunities for flourishing criminal behaviour [36]. The modern communication process has become predominantly digital, which depict the use of emails, text message, and other forms of electronic data transmission have become the primary communication method. Digital data and technology have become an integrated part of our life, providing significant opportunities that were not available in the past. On the contrary, these opportunities have presented the offenders with similar scope to facilitate illegal activities over digital media [37]. Moreover, people have invented innovative and sophisticated ways to commit crimes over the internet to avoid easy detection.
These offences are commonly known as cybercrimes and have an explicit link to digital technologies, making them vulnerable to criminal activities. Digital technologies and their advancement have become viable tools for cybercriminals due to their easy availability. Along with that, it has also provided crime investigators with tracking financial transactions. Messages and various forms of digital media use demographic location, bank account, passport, address and other identifiers [38]. Investigator has been able to track the digital footprints of criminals with “Audit trails” and convict them based on digital evidence. Electronic evidence is generally accepted in a criminal proceeding with great reluctance despite being thoroughly examined [38]. Due to the vulnerability of digital data, which can be easily modified, digital evidence requires significant discipline and “admissible scientific analysis”. In the legal investigation, it is essential to examine the quality and authenticity of the evidence to avoid an unjustified conviction.
The accuracy of digital forensics has been under scrutiny as the US National Academy of Science has criticized various traditional investigation processes. The “US Federal Rule of Evidence 902” has informed the best practices of digital forensics, highlighting the lack of “sound statistical data” and appropriate authentication cannot be accepted [38]. Additionally, techniques, which do not meet the “systematic standard” of independence, objectivity and impartiality, are not supported in the current legal framework [39]. Moreover, criminal activity has been used 57% of the dark web, which includes “weapons trafficking”, “illegitimate drugs”, “stolen financial details”, “fake currency”, “unlawful discussions”, and “terrorist communication” [40]. The dark web came to the attention of the people in 2013 when the “US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)” closed the infamous “Silk Road marketplace”.
“Deep search engines” and “hidden wiki” are the primary ways of browsing “illicit contents” and “malicious intents” on the dark web. One of the basic obstacles digital forensics faces while investigating criminal activities in the dark web is anonymity presented by the services of the dark web [41]. The services and contents on the dark web are usually used by anonymous services such as Tor, “JonDonym”, I2P and Freenet. The most popular dark web service is the Tor network, which allows users to share and acquire information anonymously with “peer-to-peer connections” rather than a “centralized computer server” [42]. This technique has provided access to the “blocked content”, maintaining privacy and utilizing “circumvent censorship” by the “U.S. Naval Research Laboratory” in 2002 [43]. Digital forensics faces challenges due to the “anonymous design structure” of the Tor network, and cyber criminals use “the Onion Router or TOR” for navigating the dark web.
The Tor network is difficult to shut down and untraceable, which allows individuals to continue their illegal activities. It is one of the primary reasons that law enforcement and digital forensics have been under insurmountable pressure to monitor and trace cyber-criminal activities on the dark web [44]. The criminals generally set up various “relay stations” in Tor to hide their criminal activities. As a result, law enforcement can only detect the “last TOR exit relay” when they link the “IP addresses” to identify the cybercriminals. The “United States Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)” has developed the “Memex Project” which has been one of the successful “data mining tools” which can be used on the dark web [44]. Digital forensics has also applied various processes to locate cyber criminals through “IP addresses”, “Bitcoin accounts”, “and social media”, and observing activities of the suspected individuals.
Bitcoins have further facilitated illegal transactions in the dark web, which enable the perpetrator to maintain anonymity while making a digital transaction. The Silk Road, which used Bitcoin as its basic currency, earned USD 1.2 billion through Bitcoin transactions. The legal use of Bitcoin has raised several controversies due to the concealment of money laundering and links of financial transactions with various illegitimate activities [45]. The Elliptic’s forensic analysis tool has been predominantly used to determine the movement of Bitcoins from illicit identities between 2013 and 2016. However, the anonymity provided by dark web services is the prime hindrance in forensic activities.
IV. FUTURE WORK
The future works of the research can help in conducting further research in digital forensics. Future research can concentrate on analysing the mitigation techniques of digital forensics to avoid common challenges of the dark web. Digital forensic personnel have been facing severe difficulties in tracing the activities of cyber criminals due to the frequent deletion of dark websites [45]. It is impossible to trace the digital footprints and establish connections to the various profiles. As a result, It can help analyse the other probable mitigation techniques in detail to examine the appropriateness of the processes [46]. Text mining techniques and “social networks analysis” can be analysed further to assess their potential in reducing terrorism activities and tracing the digital footprints of criminals.
Additionally, the utilization of Machine learning techniques in detecting malicious activities can be further investigated to provide an appropriate process for digital forensics. Machine learning algorithms can be applied to dark web marketplaces to observe and record the activity of cybercriminals [47]. Additionally, implementing the “support vector machine or SVM” and “logistic regression or LOG-REG algorithms” can facilitate the effectiveness of the process.
V. CONCLUSION
In case data is corrupted, lost, or altered, digital forensics assists in recovering information such as pictures, documents, and emails from various data storage devices. It includes numerous methods for recovering data that cybercriminals purposely conceal. The “string of data” is altered using “Reverse Steganography,” which examines the data hashing contained in the particular file. The dark web offers a variety of resources that need to be used with a particular browser, like Tor. Because the browser is built to secure users’ private information and to maintain their anonymity, cybercrime is on the rise. International cybercrimes have been rising recently, and underground vendors are making it simple to get the numerous services and resources required for committing cyberterrorism and programming platforms. The dependence on electronic evidence and forensic analysis is expanding along with technology’s ongoing development. The study has provided a significant process for mitigating the challenges of digital forensics using SIFT workstations and various OSINT tools.
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