Flávio E. G. de Deus

Acquisition and Analysis of Digital Evidence in Android Smartphones

From an experts standpoint, an Android phone is a large data repository that can be stored either locally or remotely. Besides, its platform allows analysts to acquire device data and evidence, collecting information about its owner and facts under investigation. This way, by means of exploring and cross referencing that rich data source, one can get information related to unlawful acts and its perpetrator. There are widespread and well documented approaches to forensic examining mobile devices and computers. Nevertheless, they are neither specific nor detailed enough to be conducted on Android cell phones. These approaches are not totally adequate to examine modern smartphones, since these devices have internal memories whose removal or mirroring procedures are considered invasive and complex, due to difficulties in having direct hardware access. The exam and analysis are not supported by forensic tools when having to deal with specific file systems, such as YAFFS2 (Yet Another Flash File System). Furthermore, specific features of each smartphone platform have to be considered prior to acquiring and analyzing its data. In order to deal with those challenges, this paper proposes a method to perform data acquisition and analysis of Android smartphones, regardless of version and manufacturer. The proposed approach takes into account existing techniques of computer and cell phone forensic examination, adapting them to specific Android characteristics, its data storage structure, popular applications and the conditions under which the device was sent to the forensic examiner. The method was defined in a broad manner, not naming specific tools or techniques. Then, it was deployed into the examination of six Android smartphones, which addressed different scenarios that an analyst might face, and was validated to perform an entire evidence acquisition and analysis.

Proposal of a secure, deployable and transparent middleware for Internet of Things

This paper proposes a security architecture for an IoT transparent middleware. Focused on bringing real life objects to the virtual realm, the proposed architecture is deployable and comprises protection measures based on existent technologies for security such as AES, TLS and oAuth. This way, privacy, authenticity, integrity and confidentiality on data exchange services are integrated to provide security for generated smart objects and for involved users and services in a reliable and deployable manner.

Business process modelling: A study case within the Brazilian Ministry of Planning, Budgeting and Management

Business process modelling is nowadays an important phase for requirements engineering. The description of the business process aims to reduce the distance between the users of the system and its developers. This paper presents a study case regarding the application of business process mapping using BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation), to develop a system for human resources management within the Ministry of Planning, Budget and Management in Brazil. The system to be developed has an estimated 60,000 function points effort and involves more than 500 people in the requirements phase and more in the subsequent phases of process mapping, development, validation and test.

Virtualization with automated services catalog for providing integrated information technology infrastructure

This paper proposes a service catalog service integrated with virtualized systems aiming at the possibility of raising and automating the availability in an IT (Information Technology) infrastructure. This paper demonstrates that aligning the server virtualization concepts and infrastructure management tools is possible to have gains in time and costs when compared to systems without automated service catalog. The main results presented illustrates that the use of a virtualized environment, with a standard services catalog and specific tools for infrastructure management, provides a time saving, reducing the request interval to a new server from several days to a few hours.

Survivable mechanism for IEEE 802.11 WLAN improvements

In this paper we propose a mechanism to improve survivability in IEEE 802.11 WLAN. Our approach consists of two main phases: Design and Fault Response. In Design phase, we deal with quantifying, placement and setting up of APs according to both area coverage and performance criteria. In Fault Response phase we consider the reconfiguration of active APs in order to deal with AP fault in the service area. We analyze changes in both power level and frequency channel assignment of the remaining APs, searching for the best configuration during the fault condition. We also propose area coverage and performance metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of the solution for the fault condition, according to the fault tolerance constrains de-fined in the Design phase. Finally, we present an implementation of the proposed techniques.

A methodology for quality assurance for business process modeling with BPMN: A case study for the SIGEPE software

During the development of computer systems, business process modeling is a phase that delivers important firsthand inputs for requirements engineering. The goal of business process mapping is to understand, improve and organize the activities of the process to ensure efficient and correct implementation. Quality in business process modeling can decisively influence the software quality. Internal quality analysis is made in-house, for the development process, while external quality analysis is made for the final product and satisfaction of the end consumer. Quality assurance comes from quality attributes verified with checklists in iterative cycles. Then, process mapping contributes both to producing consistent artifacts to better communications within the project. This article presents a methodology for quality assurance of process modeling that can be applied for the development of large computer systems. The methodology was used in a complex case study, with the mapping of business processes using BPMN, to develop a system for human resources management within the Ministry of Planning, Budget and Management (MPOG) in Brazil.

Methodology for business process modeling: A study case within the Brazilian Ministry of Planning, Budget and Management

Business process modeling is currently an important step in supporting the development of computational systems, as it occurs prior to the establishment of what is required for implementing the system. The business process mapping and its description are designed to further develop and structure the activities needed for the successful execution of this task. This article presents a modeling methodology for process mapping that can be applied to the development of large computational systems. The methodology was applied in a case study of business process mapping, using BPMN, for the development of the human resource management system of the Ministry of Planning, Budget and Management - MPOG in Brazil.

Secure data storage in distributed cloud environments

In order to prevent the attack and discovery of sensitive data, a model is presented to protect the confidentiality of data even when the attackers have access to all data from the server: using systems that perform queries and inserts on encrypted data without the decryption key. The model set is applied in a real scenario: a distributed system hosted by Google (Encrypted BigQuery), which includes the use of encryption in data stored in non-relational databases for massive data processing. As a result, it is shown that this system supports a variety of applications with low overhead.

Application of data mining techniques in the characterization of internal personnel turnover

The aim of this work is to propose the application of data mining techniques to detect behavior patterns in employee management databases. The desired knowledge concerns the transfer of people between organizational areas (internal turnover), in order to provide organizations a model for assessing the impact of these transfers on their people management policies. Therefore, this article describes a model that applies techniques of clustering and association rules for the discovery of knowledge on transfers of staff between units of a Brazilian financial organization. To allow the expression of this knowledge in a compact expressive way, a new dimension type is proposed for the multidimensional model. This way, the hypothesis is evaluated on a case study conducted in a Brazilian organization, with over four thousand units spread nationwide and over 95 thousand employees.

Computer Forensic Laboratory: Aims, Functionalities, Hardware and Software

The Internet and other computer resources became also means for criminal activities. Regardless the types of crimes investigated, law enforcers seize from crime scene a large quantity of equipments and media containing evidences for investigation. After a forensic examination of the evidences, a forensic report is issued by computer forensic examiners. In order to recovery and analyze the evidences seized with higher accuracy, a well structured computer forensic laboratory is essential. In this paper, we present the basic elements of a standard computer forensic laboratory as well as the tools associated with it, not only in terms of functionalities and aims but also in terms of hardware and software. For the software part, we present commercial and free solutions.