Tracking user activity on personal computers

Anthony Keane, Stephen O'Shaughnessy

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

    Abstract

    Combining low cost digital storage with the tendency for the average computer user to keep computer files long after they have become useful has created such large stores of data on computer systems that the cost and time to conduct even a preliminary examination has created new technical and operational challenges for forensics investigations. Popular operating systems for personal computers do not inherently provide services that allow the tracking of the user's activity that would allow a simple personal audit of their computers to be carried out so the user can see what they were doing, when they did it and how long they spent on each activity. Such audit trails would assist in forensics investigations in building timelines of activity so suspects could be quickly eliminated (or not) from an investigation. This paper gives some insight to the advantages of having a user activity tracking system and explores the difficulties in developing a generic third party solution.

    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationDigital Forensics and Cyber Crime - Third International ICST Conference, ICDF2C 2011, Revised Selected Papers
    Pages188-196
    Number of pages9
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2012
    Event3rd International ICST Conference on Digital Forensics and Cyber Crime, ICDF2C 2011 - Dublin, Ireland
    Duration: 26 Oct 201128 Oct 2011

    Publication series

    NameLecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social-Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering
    Volume88 LNICST
    ISSN (Print)1867-8211

    Conference

    Conference3rd International ICST Conference on Digital Forensics and Cyber Crime, ICDF2C 2011
    Country/TerritoryIreland
    CityDublin
    Period26/10/1128/10/11

    Keywords

    • Computer Forensics
    • FTK
    • Information Security
    • Timeline Analysis

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