CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The world is becoming a smaller place in which to live and work. A technological revolution in communications and information exchange has taken place within business, industry and homes. Most developed and developing countries are substantially more invested in information processing and Management than manufacturing goods, and this has affected their professional and personal lives. We bank and transfer money electronically and we are much more likely to receive an E-mail than a letter. It is estimated that the worldwide internet population is 349 million (Commerce Net Research Council 2000).

In this information technology age, some traditional crimes especially those concerning finance and commerce, continue to be upgraded technologically. Crimes associated with theft and manipulations of data are detected daily. Crimes of violence also are not immune to the effects of the information age. A serious and costly terrorist act could come from the internet instead of a truck bomb. The diary of a serial killer may be recorded on a floppy disk or hard disk drive rather than on paper in a notebook. Just as the workforce has gradually converted from manufacturing goods to processing information, criminal activity has to large extent also converted from physical dimension. There calls a need for computer forensic experts and computer based monitoring and security system for easy capture of evidence of intruder who compromises a network or computer.

This project dealt with the design and implementation of a computer based security and monitoring system for forensic experts, an ideal way for tracking the activities of an account user and also for recovering digital evidence of crime committed in a computer system.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

With the evolution of computer and the internet which has made the world a global village, so has criminals also taken advantage of this technological advancement to engage in different forms of cyber crime ranging from terrorism, internet fraud to the release of sophisticated viruses which is difficult to trace the perpetrators due to lack of sophisticated software that can retrieve information of such activities. This led to the design of a computer based security and monitoring system for forensic experts which will help in tracking the activities of internet users and for recovery of digital evidence of crime committed in a computer system.

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF STUDY

The objectives of this system are to:

(i) Design and implement a computer based security and monitoring system for forensic experts.

(ii) Realize a system for capturing, collecting, analyzing, preserving and presenting evidence of computer crime in an acceptable manner.

1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This application when implemented will be able to monitor the activities of a computer user by taking screenshots of internet activities, process capture and capture the content of the index.dat file which will help forensic expert with substantial evidence to prosecute cyber criminals.

1.5 SCOPE OF STUDY

This project is designed to monitor the activities of computer users to investigate and fish out cyber criminals. The project employed Java programming language in ensuring the design and implementation of a Computer Based Security and Monitoring system that will aid forensic experts in their investigations and prosecution of criminals.