The International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) recently hosted a Digital Security Challenge at its Global Complex for Innovation (IGCI) in Singapore, which saw digital forensic experts and cybercrime investigators from 20 countries compete to gather evidence, identify a suspect, and solve a simulated crime scenario.
“Cybercrime investigations are becoming increasingly complicated and this challenge replicated some of the twists and turns encountered by investigators every day,” Interpol’s Global Complex for Innovation Director Noboru Nakatani said. “As well as providing participants with the skills they need to conduct effective investigations, the digital security challenge also highlights the need for close cooperation with the private sector which has been the ethos of the IGCI since we first opened our doors.”
Interpol said the exercise was designed to simulate a real environment for specialists to develop their knowledge and exchange ideas on investigating cybercrime. Given PCs and laptops pre-loaded with a range of digital forensic tools, this exercise in particular began with a hospital asking for police assistance on a ransomware infection.
The teams were first instructed to locate a specific PC terminal in which the hospital received the ransomware, which was established from an email containing a harmful link. Then the specialists identified the server that was communicating the ransomware, which led them to an IP address associated with the suspect’s home. The suspect’s phone was then seized, which was then analyzed to identify how the ransomware email was originally sent.
The event was organized with the NEC Corporation and the Cyber Defense Institute and included training sessions to develop participants’ understanding of topics like malware identification, bitcoin analytics, and suspect tracking.