IT Forensics
Acquiring and analyzing digital evidence
Today, many criminals use computers and the Internet for their own purposes. They often leave behind digital traces that can be used to discover, investigate and prove criminal or illegal activities. The task of IT forensics is to identify, preserve and analyze these traces. However, technical developments continue to present investigators with major challenges: The mass of data has increased to such an extent that the information can only be efficiently analyzed and evaluated with the help of IT forensic tools. These tools must be further developed to keep up with the rapid pace of technological development. In addition, perpetrators use computer technology to cover their tracks and circumvent the application of IT forensic procedures and tools through the targeted use of counter-forensics techniques.
Our topics
- Trace detection on hard disks, mobile devices and other IT devices
- Development of IT forensic tools
- File Carving / Data Reconstruction
- Robust and efficient recognition of similar files
- Image classification in terms of visible content
- Manipulation detection for multimedia data
- Detection of “Copy & Paste”, e.g. image splicing
- Identifying AI-generated synthetic content, e.g. deepfakes
- Metadata analysis
- Text Data Analysis
- Computational Linguistics / NLP
- Authorship Analysis
- Topic Modeling
- Sentiment Analysis
- Crawling and Open Source Intelligence OSINT
- Attacks, Security and Privacy in Machine Learning (ML)
- Fake news detection in texts and images
- Forensic financial data analysis for fraud detection
Our offer
Fraunhofer SIT is active in many areas of IT forensics and offers the following services and solutions for companies and public authorities
- Contract Research and consulting
- Publicly funded research projects, preferably in cooperation with partners from industry and public authorities
- IT forensic expert opinions as a service
- Licensing of our security solutions
- Continuing education courses
Our projects
- MaLeFiz
Machine learning for efficient identification of conspicuous financial transactions - OK 3.0
Systematic and comprehensive analysis and prospects for combating organized crime in Germany - DISCO
Disinformation in Conflicts (German) - DORIAN
Exposing and combating disinformation (German) - DYNAMO
Detecting and combating fake news in messenger services (German) - KIKu
AI-assisted detection of illegal trade in cultural goods (German) - PANDA
Parallel Structures, Forms of Activity and User Behavior on the Darknet (German) - EWV
Detection of white-collar crime and insurance fraud (German) - ILLICID
Methods for illuminating the dark field as a basis for crime control and prevention using the example of ancient cultural assets (German) - SePIA
SEcurity and Privacy In Automated OSINT - RoMa
Robustness in Machine Learning - Technology for the digital protection of minors
Study on Automatic detection of sexting and cybergrooming (German) - ForBild
Forensic image recognition - ForSicht
Forensic sifting of image and video data from heterogeneous mass storage devices (German)
Contact
Prof. Dr. Martin Steinebach
Head of Media Security and IT Forensics
64295 Darmstadt
Recognizing Fake News
Fraunhofer SIT deals with disinformation and its technical detection. As part of the ATHENE research center, a laboratory with IT forensic tools has now been established at Fraunhofer SIT to uncover manipulations in various areas.