Dark-web

Digital forensic software is a powerful investigative tool that law enforcement and investigators have turned to for solving crimes against children. Perpetrators have found new avenues to exploit and harm vulnerable children by obtaining sexually explicit content.

The Dark Web is a hidden corner of the internet where criminals can anonymously conduct illegal activities such as selling drugs, weapons, stolen data, and other illicit goods and services.

As you may know, the dark web is one of the most complex and secretive networks out there that many criminal and intelligence networks use to attack civilians and federal systems. In addition, much of the online child exploitive material and stolen identities are committed using the dark web. As tools are being developed to explore these criminals' hidden servers and chatrooms, law enforcement professionals and investigators still need a process to investigate these types of crimes quickly but with absolute thoroughness.

You may have heard a bit about the dark web and how it is used for illicit activities such as buying and selling drugs, firearms, or other illegal items. But this is only part of the problem. The dark web has much more to offer a malicious user than criminals looking to sell stolen items. The dark web provides anonymous users the ability to stalk children, steal identities, and do many more criminal activities. 

ADF Solutions’ partner recently held a global Dark Web Hackathon in advance of Human Trafficking Awareness Month. The Anti-Human Trafficking Intelligence Initiative (ATII) the organization that combats human trafficking through increasing awareness, facilitating intelligence integration & technology advancement, and encouraging strategic data collaboration, today announced the winners of the inaugural annual Darkwebathon. The five-day virtual event attracted more than 330 registrants and generated thousands of reports sharing the ultimate goal of creating actionable intelligence so that law enforcement agencies can be equipped with real data to make arrests. 

Within ADF software and forensic triage products, including Digital Evidence Investigator, Triage-Investigator, or Triage-G2, an investigator can quickly find Dark Web traces. This can be done in Quick Profiles but in this video, Rich Frawley shows how to use an Intermediate Profile to triage a suspect machine to identify Dark Web traces. These can be found in ADF's Anti-Forensic Traces Capture.