Summary: HCC Partners In Life Potential Breach

Issue 4: Information Security officials failed to effectively trigger appropriate notifications and begin an investigation of the stolen data. The information security official’s incident report contained omissions and significant errors. This resulted in missed opportunity to re-create the contents of the laptop and external drive and to recognize the severity of the potential loss of data. The cybersecurity operations officials failed to ensure a timely investigation and notifications were made regarding the severity of the lost data (Opfer, 2006).

As is the case with any type of evidence seizure, what is fair game and what is off limits needs to be identified and set, preferably in writing before any work is done. (Nelson, Phillips, & Steuart, 2015). This ensures that the forensics team will be protected in the worst case scenario where the company could have an issue with what was taken, very similar to the protection ethical hackers require when performing a penetration test (##). Once this list is created, the team will interview the system administrators to provide any information allowed about the systems such as the equipment, system baselines, passwords that are allowed to be shared, and any special information that would need to be known before analyzing the system such as what information is logged and where would it be stored (Rowlingson, 2004). The entire purpose of this information gathering is to paint a clearer picture of the situation so a more detailed plan could be devised prior to any systems being touched.

A root-cause analysis of the security breach revealed multi-factorial issues at the technical, individual, group, and organizational levels. At the technical level, the applications and web-tools were initially tested and evaluated in an ideal environments that was not equivalent to the clinical practice

An investigator obtains consent from subjects to review their medical records and HIV status. He plans to go back to the medical record, so the HIV status information is stored along with patient identifiers in a database that he keeps on his laptop computer. His laptop is stolen. This incident constitutes:

Thoroughly document scenes and gather potential evidences (physical, specimens, documents, photographs, statements etc) to send to crime lab

Identifying evidence is the first stage in the process. A laptop, computer monitor, and hard drive are all pieces of evidence that are usually located first. It is critical for the investigator who is identifying and collecting evidence to know what else to look for. Other items that should be identified and collected as possible evidence include external hard drives, floppy discs, CD’s, USB drives, and memory cards. If the investigator isn’t aware what all falls into the category of digital evidence, it is possible that vital evidence may not be collected (Cosic, 2011).

Identify the sensitive data practices that Sweets, Inc. needs to address. Then, recommend how to improve these sensitive data

The most important aspect of the investigation is gathering all relevant evidence to produce accurate findings. Most critical, is ensuring the findings are aligned with policy and statute. In the process of gathering information, barriers can arise where a supervisor or manager does not provide enough information or is unwilling to fully engage in the process. This can be hampered by poor or nonexistent documentation in the electronic case record. Having the necessary skills to walk a ‘political tightrope’-meaning to balance the need for cooperative, accurate information from the field while also managing the raw human behavior of not wanting to discuss or face possible mistakes- contributes to

When our unit arrived at this residency, we knew exactly what kind of evidence we were searching for because the local court gave us a warrant which gave us the permission to investigate all computer belonging possessed, conducted, or governed by the suspect. So, as we conducted our more thorough search, we observed and obtained numerous hard drives, laptops, thumb drives, and related data storage systems, as well as associated hardware which contained thousands of images and videos involving child pornographic content. We proceeded to photograph each one of these pieces of evidence exactly where we found them. We took medium range, as well as close-up pictures of this evidence and added them to our detailed sketch of the crime scene. We were extra cautious and even had another crime scene investigator within our department videotape our walk-through to help record and narrate our time-line, as well. Once all of the evidence was photographed, documented and sketched properly according to procedural standards, our unit then began to correctly mark and package it. It is very important that this step is done during any kind of investigation because if it is not completed, the evidence obtained is virtually useless. The computers we located were connected to a network and turned on, so we photographed what was on the screen first and then unplugged the power cord from the back of the tower. If computers are not unplugged the correct way, then the unit risks losing the files that are stored on it which would greatly impact the case (U.S Department of Homeland Security, N/A). Anyway, once we unplugged it, we placed labels upon all of the other cords before we disconnected all of them, so we knew how to plug them back in later. We placed the equipment in packaging marked as “fragile” and made sure to keep all of it away from any kind of damaging elements including martinets and radio transmitters. We continued to

The members of the team can make use of forensic techniques which can include reviewing system logs, looking for gaps in the logs, reviewing intrusion detection logs and, last but not the least, interviewing the eye witnesses and the victim of the incident to find out how the incident took place. Only authorized individual must be performing interviews or must be examining the evidence and the authorized individual may differ according to the situations and the organization related to

The investigation after an incident allows the organization to identify the attacker, tools used in the attack, the vulnerability that was exploited, and the damage caused by the attack. This post-mortem

The CEO and the board are responsible for “good business judgment” in guarding against the threat. So Paul’s first mistake was to dismiss the original e-mail message. All IT threats should be taken seriously, and he would have let Jacob Dale know about no IT system is “bulletproof.” Sunnylake should have had a workable, fully tested backup system to ensure uninterrupted patient service and protect everyone affected. Doctors and nurses are trained to diagnose, problem solve, and dynamically treat their patients. IT systems facilitate, but are not substitutes for, patient treatment. The fact that the hospital did not have up-to-date security software installed, or a reliable security outsourcer and an emergency plan in place, is inexcusable.

Since most investigations start with very limited information, care and common sense are necessary to minimize the chances of destroying evidence. A plan of operation is developed and initiated from an initial walk through of the scene. The plan is to decide what evidence may be present, what evidence may be fragile and need to be collected as soon as possible. What resources, equipment, and assistance are necessary for the processing? Consideration of hazards or safety conditions may need to be addressed.

Since the widespread use of computers, computer crime has caused an increase in computer investigations during the twenty first century. Some reasons for investigation include: identity theft, such as stolen social security and credit card numbers, to find evidence of a cheating spouse, to investigate hackers on a computer system, to find evidence of child pornography, and much more.

item The forensic investigator should discover all the required files for forensic investigation. These files can be the server logs, server