This course provides an overview of the actions investigators can take at the outset of a financial crime investigation. Students learn to ask critical questions, gather documentation, and analyze information for leads. Topics include obtaining and working with financial records, red flags in financial cases, money laundering, investigative strategies for different types of financial crimes, and commingled funds.
This course provides expert guidance in the skills law enforcement officers need to conduct successful online investigations. Topics include IP addresses and domains, an overview of currently popular social media platforms, best practices for building an undercover profile, foundational knowledge related to the dark web, and the use of the dark web as an investigative tool. Instructors demonstrate both open source and commercially available investigative tools for social engineering, information gathering, and artifacts related to social media, as well as automated utilities to capture information and crawl websites.
This course provides the fundamental knowledge and skills necessary to preview the most commonly encountered forms of digital evidence. The course covers Windows-based and macOS-based computers, mobile devices, and removable storage media. In a combination of lecture, discussion, and practical exercises, instructors introduce the previewing process, legal considerations, live previewing, and dead-box previewing. Students gain hands-on experience with free and commercial third-party previewing tools that are in current use by practitioners in the field.
This course provides students with the fundamental knowledge and skills they need to investigate crimes involving virtual currency. Instructors explain foundational concepts like the characteristics of money, virtual currency, and cryptocurrency. Blockchain technology, proof work, and proof of stake are covered, and students learn how industry-leading cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Monero) work and how they differ from each other. Finally, students learn investigative techniques for tracking and documenting transactions and best practices for seizing and securing cryptocurrency.
This course provides the technical and legal information prosecutors need to see cases involving digital evidence through the entire criminal justice process, from seizure and extraction to admissibility to verdict. Topics include digital evidence commonly seized during the execution of a search warrant, digital evidence stored remotely by third-party service providers, and the processes investigators use to obtain this evidence (such as the interrogation of digital devices). There is a strong focus on case law and other legal issues surrounding the collection and custody of digital evidence, as well as its use at trial. The course also examines new legislation like the CLOUD Act, which is reforming the digital evidence landscape just as rapidly as the ever-changing case law.
This course builds on the concepts introduced in "Financial Crime (FC) 101 - Financial Investigations Practical Skills" and "FC 105 - Financial Records Examination and Analysis," introducing investigators and prosecutors to emerging issues in financial crime. Topics include money laundering, analyzing large financial data sets, conducting effective interviews, and managing large amounts of financial evidence. This course consists of a mix of lecture, discussion, and hands-on exercises. Students conduct a mock investigation that includes interviews, data analysis, and the construction of an electronic case file.
This course provides the advanced skills and knowledge necessary to analyze data on iOS devices (iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad) and Android devices at an advanced level. Students use forensically sound tools and techniques to analyze potential evidence, employing advanced techniques to uncover evidence potentially missed or misrepresented by commercial forensic tools. Topics include identifying potential threats to data stored on devices, using available acquisition options, accessing locked devices, and understanding the default folder structure. Core skills include analyzing artifacts such as device information, call history, voicemail, messages, web browser history, contacts, and photos. Instruction is provided on developing the "hunt" methodology for analyzing third-party applications not supported by commercial forensic tools.
This course teaches students to identify and collect volatile data, acquire forensically sound images of Apple Macintosh computers, and perform forensic analysis of macOS operating system and application artifacts. Students gain hands-on experience scripting and using automated tools to conduct a simulated live triage, and use multiple methods to acquire forensically sound images of Apple Macintosh computers. Topics include how the macOS default file system stores data, what happens when files are sent to the macOS Trash, where operating system and application artifacts are stored, and how they can be analyzed. Forensic artifacts covered include password recovery, recently opened files and applications, encryption handling, Mail, Safari, Messages, FaceTime, Photos, Chrome, and Firefox.
This course is for officers, investigators, and analysts who encounter cell phone evidence that includes information external to the phone. Class concepts include instruction on how to request, read, and analyze call detail records from cellular providers, and how to plot cellular site locations to determine the approximate position of a suspect during a given period. No special hardware or software is required. However, this course focuses heavily on analysis; as such, a strong working knowledge of Microsoft Excel is highly recommended. Students are provided with a free copy of the National White Collar Crime Center's (NW3C) PerpHound tool, which assists in the plotting of call detail record locations.
This course provides students with the fundamental knowledge and skills they need to investigate crimes involving virtual currency. Instructors explain foundational concepts like the characteristics of money, virtual currency, and cryptocurrency. Blockchain technology, proof work, and proof of stake are covered, and students learn how industry-leading cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Monero) work and how they differ from each other. Finally, students learn investigative techniques for tracking and documenting transactions and best practices for seizing and securing cryptocurrency.