Digital Forensic Breadcrumbs at the 2020 Grace Hopper Celebration

Cybereason will be present at the 2020 Grace Hopper Celebration, the world’s largest gathering around the research and career interests of women in computing happening in October. With 25,000 participants expected to attend, and keynotes from Serena Williams and Megan Rapinoe, the Grace Hopper Celebration brings together women in STEM across the globe, in the first ever virtual edition of the conference.

Echoing that Cybereason supports defenders, Principal Security Advocate at Cybereason Lodrina Cherne will be giving a talk titled Digital Forensic Breadcrumbs.

While breadcrumbs are not a technical term used in Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR), Lodrina exposes the concept of data left behind by everyday use of computers and cell phones to help attendees figure out how to defend and secure their own data.

“I want to expose people of all different technical abilities to the field of digital forensics and what kind of data a forensic investigator can recover. Knowing what kind of data can be recovered is the first step to figuring out a personal threat model and a plan to secure that data.”

In her talk, Lodrina will share strategies that attendees at any technical level can use to identify where and when their data is being stored. One example deals with tracking where users have been browsing on a computer, noting for example:

“Have you ever opened up your ‘Pictures’ folder on your computer and noticed that your photos always show up as tiny previews of the full size images? Then, have you gone into your ‘Downloads’ folder and noticed the files are displayed as a list of files instead of little pictures? Because your computer remembers these different settings for you, forensic investigators can piece together what folders you’ve been clicking through.”

Sharing this type of technical information is something Lodrina does routinely, teaching week-long computer forensic classes to technology professionals. The Grace Hopper Celebration committee asked presenters this year to go beyond just the technical details and consider how issues like COVID-19, mass unemployment, and civil and racial unrest relate to the sessions being given. 

Lodrina tackled the topic by introducing the idea of threat modeling based on whose security is most at risk during the current pandemic. For example, introducing the idea that what one user does to keep herself safe may not be what someone else attending the talk needs security wise, once she’s identified a security and privacy risk related to her data.

This year the Virtual Grace Hopper Celebration will be produced by AnitaB.org, in partnership with the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery). Cybereason will be presenting in the Security and Privacy track alongside other nine other sessions discussing topics ranging from security awareness campaigns and deep fakes, to COVID-19 tracking related privacy issues.

Register here for access to all keynotes, talks, and access to On-Demand sessions. Lodrina Cherne’s session: October 3rd, 1:00-1:30pm Eastern Time.