news
#02 2014 Intelligence solutions to make a difference
To the left product Manager Ken Mizota of Guidance Software discusses the new version of NetClean Analyze DI with Johann Hofmann.
Collaboration helps investigators NetClean is now working with Guidance Software in the USA. The main benefits of this new effort will be more efficient and more satisfied customers, according to Guidance Software’s Product Manager Ken Mizota.
”A
fter looking at
the capability of NetClean Analyze, we became very interested in working closely with NetClean. By allowing our tools to work together, we will be giving our customers valuable assistance,” says Mizota. Guidance Software’s EnCase® tool is used for collecting, processing and analyzing forensic data. Because it’s an open platform, the company works with multiple suppliers of complementary products that use data from EnCase. But a software application that analyzes and categorizes images in as sophisticated a way as NetClean Analyze does is extremely valuable, he says. ”We’re seeing that it really solves problems for criminal investigators. They gain in efficiency and save time, which they really appreciate.” customers typically use a large number of tools in their investigations, so it’s important that they are interoperable. ”Our aim is to make our customers’ lives easier, and without tools like NetClean Analyze and EnCase, investigators are not able to efficiently analyze and categorize the large volumes involved. They need the right tools for the job.” Ken Mizota envisages several other applications
Guidance Software’s
40 000 Licenses • Guidance Software’s EnCase solution is used for digital investigations conducted by corporations and law-enforcement organizations worldwide. A total of 40,000 licenses are in use by corporate customers such as Symantec, General Electric, Coca-Cola and Pfizer, and the EnCase servlet is estimated to be deployed on over 20 million endpoints worldwide.
in addition to detection of child sexual abuse images (CSAI) in future. ”The great thing about NetClean Analyze is that it can also be used in other types of investigations involving images, which represent an increasingly important component.” As examples, he
mentions harassment cases or employee misuse of corporate resources for collecting pornographic images. According to NetClean Analyze Product Manager Johann Hofmann, the main benefit of the alliance is that the forensic community now stands to gain a more seamless workflow between IT forensics and investigations of still and video images. ”We have a whole lot to learn from Guidance Software, which has been regarded as the gold standard in IT forensics for years. And with NetClean Analyze now emergent as the leader in technology for processing still and video images, we will be building a standard together.”
Contents #02 2014 ➤NetClean Analyze with new powerful capability ➤New blog on internet security ➤User numbers increasing worldwide
Christian Berg, CEO NetClean:
Visual data examined for all crimes
P
hotos and video footage are being produced at an increasing pace worldwide, and data volumes are soaring.
New NetClean Analyze DI – The new NetClean Analyze DI makes it easier to examine and analyze vast volumes of visual data with reduced manual input. Thanks to the new capabilities, we have registered even broader interest in the product. "Use of the program is increasing, including in investigations of fraud, homicide or organized crime," says Product Manager Johann Hofmann.
10,000 images stored on a single computer were seen as high volume. These days, it's possible to store the same number of images in the phone you carry in your pocket. The camera in the average phone today can produce high-resolution photos and HD-quality video. This makes it even more crucial to be able to process and analyze large volumes of visual data. Demand for high-capability processing has been around for a long time in efforts to prevent the spread of CSAI over the internet, and the race was on for us to keep up with the mounting data volumes. But we caught up and have reached a point where our capability is keeping pace. The latest version of NetClean Analyze is so powerful that it can deal with the volumes around today.
Just a decade ago
Meanwhile, the pressure is now on for other types of crime. All crime nowadays involves some degree of IT, and until now, investigators were largely only able to concentrate on textual information. Visual data were never part of the searchable results, being more a kind of metadata in criminal investigations.
and video footage are increasingly important in investigative work generally. An investigator who has no way of examining the photos and videos in a seized phone may well be missing a lot of important information. This has persuaded law-enforcement officers that NetClean Analyze, long used by CSAI investigators, can also be used for other types of crime because it offers an effective means of sifting through huge volumes of visual data and saves precious time.
But now, still images
Christian Berg, CEO
Parts of the team behind the new NetClean Analyze. From left: Andreas Eriksson, Fredrik Hultin, Eva-Lotta Liljegren, John Lundberg, Johann Hofmann.
Jim Cole, Homeland Security:
”From Swiss army knife to chain saw” If previous tools were an army knife, NetClean Analyze is a chain saw. The simile comes from Jim Cole of Homeland Security Investigations, USA, who are now using the product with huge success. A picture is worth a thousand words. The old adage goes just as much for criminal investigations; an image holds a huge amount of relevant data. But as volumes increase, new programs are needed for analysis, identification and sorting. "Our earlier programs just wouldn't have had the capability for processing the vast volumes involved now. You could say they were like a Swiss army knife; good all-rounders, but although the Swiss army knife includes a saw blade, you wouldn't use it for felling trees. NetClean Analyze is our chain saw," says Special Agent Jim Cole in a feature in Digital Forensics Magazine. Earlier programs have not improved much
over the last decade, reckons Cole. What they can do is flag relevant material, whereas NetClean Analyze is able to sort and group the material which makes investigations simpler and less time-consuming. "We're also able to enter a lot more informa-
– more powerful than ever
E
xamining millions of photos and video footage in a CSAI case, for instance, is a tall order for any team, which is why NetClean Analyze DI has been so keenly received by investigators worldwide. The recently released version 14.1 of the product makes even shorter work of caseloads: "Law enforcement IT forensic investigators typically start by cloning the data on seized storage devices. This eliminates the risk of damaging the original data. Next, NetClean Analyze processes the cloned material, and identifies relevant data. We're hearing that end-users are over the moon," says Johann Hofmann. The program flags images detected in other investigations. It also searches for similar
AT A GLANCE: NetClean Forensic Market NetClean has opened its own Appstore for apps used in investigation work. Here the developers can share their apps. For now there are some 10-15 apps available, but more are turning up all the time. Examples of apps currently available: Forensic Utility Pack, The Hex Viewer, NetClean Fuzzy Keyword Matching, Odata Sharing Protocol.
backgrounds, environments, objects or images forming part of a series or taken with the same camera. But there are many ways of reading data: "Images contain more information than revealed by casual inspection. Certain programs, for example, are set up to embed a thumbnail in each image file. Images from criminal sources are often doctored – with faces edited out, for example. For those, NetClean Analyze automatically detects that the image differs from the thumbnail. an enhanced interface, is faster and more intuitive to use. It also provides additional functionality to cater for day-to-day IT forensic casework. "We now have a tool that serves both law enforcement investigators and IT forensic investigators, regardless of the type of crime under investigation. There was a big gap for some time, which has now been closed," says Johann Hofmann. "One of our main strengths is our responsiveness to end-user needs. We have a huge user base that gives us valued feedback for enhancing our product." Interest in NetClean Analyze is increasing rapidly among law enforcement teams, and not only in investigations of suspected child sexual abuse images. "All types of investigations involving large volumes of visual data stand to benefit from NetClean Analyze," says Hofmann.
The new version offers
”Many companies claim to be committed to supporting law enforcement, but few of them actually provide viable tools like this pro bono.”
On the NetClean blog you can read about the latest developments in internet security, child protection and digital crime prevention.
➤ NetClean
launches new blog
In April, NetClean started up a new blog. The blog is available via the www. netclean.com website and is updated on a regular basis. The blog was created to allow company owners, associates, partners and customers to share views and experiences surrounding the latest developments in internet security, child protection and digital crime prevention. "We look forward to doing our bit to spread news, opinions, useful advice and research findings in the efforts to combat crime in the digital world," says NetClean Marketing Manager Fredrik Frejme.
At a conference in Brisbane, Australia, NetClean Analyze was very warmly received.
➤ Positive response
in Australia
In Australia, a
tion, say, if the images portray physical assault, the age of the victim, the identity of the victim and perpetrator, whether the images have been shared and so on. This makes the investigations more detailed, targeted and efficient," he says. "Another key aspect is that NetClean Analyze
DI is free. Police division budgets are limited. Small units wouldn't be able to afford to invest in this type of program. ”Many companies claim to be committed to supporting law enforcement, but few of them are actually giving away effective tools like this pro bono.”
great many national police authorities are calling for a nationwide solution. "There are those among them who see NetClean Analyze as the obvious choice for all police authorities to use," says NetClean CEO Christian Berg. In May he attended a conference in Brisbane, Australia where representatives from police authorities across the continent met to discuss police investigation of cyber crime involving CSAI. At the conference, Christian Berg had the opportunity to present NetClean and demonstrate how Analyze boosts investigative efficiency. "The response was very positive. Australia is a well-developed country that knows how to tackle these crimes.
ISSUED BY: NetClean Technologies Sweden AB Första Långgatan 30 413 27 Gothenburg Sweden
Countries currently using NetClean´s products.
NetClean is rapidly gaining more users worldwide Mauritius, Colombia, New Zealand. These are just some of the countries where NetClean´s products are in use. NetClean Analyze is the product that is least affected by economic fluctuations and has the greatest uptake worldwide. Growth is highest in the USA, where the good reputation of our product is spreading fast by word of mouth among satisfied users.
A
ll NetClean products were used initially in Sweden and then spread successively to more countries. The first product, NetClean ProActive, aimed at the corporate market, was established fairly rapidly in Sweden, Denmark and the UK. "When the financial crisis took hold in 2009, this expansion came to a standstill, but has now resumed," says Christian Berg, CEO of NetClean. "We're getting a lot of inquiries
from businesses in different parts of the world, mainly the US and Europe. They've discovered that NetClean ProActive actually works and that our approach to tackling the problem is the right one.
NetClean Analyze, which was developed for law enforcement, went global in no time, and is now used in 25–30 countries. "With its pro bono model, NetClean Analyze rode the financial crisis, and is going from strength to strength," says the CEO. The market for NetClean Analyze really took off four years ago. "Uptake is spreading among investigators keen to stay at the cutting edge and test stateof-the-art solutions. They also appreciated the opportunity to influence development of the solutions. More recently, uptake has increased rapidly in the US, partly as a result of the partnership formed with Homeland Security a few years
ago. The product's reputation is now spreading rapidly from one police authority to the next. "Investigators who have learned to use NetClean Analyze soon appreciate the huge time-saving it gives them, and word gets around. Achieving this kind of 'buzz' around a product, where its advantages are spread wordof-mouth by satisfied users, is the best marketing there is. As for NetClean WhiteBox, which is used by internet service providers, a whole wave of countries started blocking child sexual abuse images (CSAI) sites in around 2006-2007. NetClean WhiteBox is now used in around 20 countries, with more joining the ranks as they achieve more sophisticated infrastructure and security in line with increased internet access. That said, Berg doesn't see NetClean's main expansion in future coming from uptake on additional geographical markets. "Most of the growth will be in markets already using our products."
NetClean Technologies Sweden AB Första Långgatan 30 41327 Gothenburg Sweden
Tel:. +46 31-7190800 Fax: +46 31-138950 info@netclean.com
If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter, simply unsubscribe at newsletter@netclean.com
Would you like to receive the newsletter in digital format? Sign up at www.netclean.com