National Cybercrime & Forensics Lab

Research Labs

National Cybercrime and Forensics Lab is doing R&D of cybercrime investigation and digital forensics techniques and tools. The lab is mainly focused on the following three domains:

  • Social media forensics
  • Computer forensics
  • Mobile forensics
I. Social Media Forensics

In recent years, social media has gained high popularity. Today, Facebook alone have over 2.13 billion monthly active users. Forensic analysis of social data is performed post-incident. Naturally, investigators will gravitate to where the evidence exists. Although the photo and video evidence is sometimes posted by the criminals themselves, investigators can also utilize information posted by others to both strengthen a case and even identify the perpetrator of a crime. Our focus in this area would be to perform R&D of social media forensic techniques and tools.

II. Computer Forensics

Computer forensics is the practice of collecting, analyzing and reporting on digital data. It can be used in the detection and prevention of crime and in any dispute where evidence is stored digitally. It is not just the content of emails, documents and other files which may be of interest to investigators but also the ‘metadata’ associated with those files. A computer forensic examination may reveal when a document first appeared on a computer, when it was last edited, when it was last saved or printed and which user carried out these actions. Our focus in this area would be to perform R&D of computer forensic techniques and tools.

III. Mobile Forensics

Mobile forensics is about the acquisition and the analysis of mobile devices to recover digital evidences of investigative interest. This is a useful for investigators as a method of gathering criminal evidence from a trail of digital data, which is often difficult to delete. Extraction of deleted mobile phone files used as criminal evidence is the primary work of mobile phone forensics. The continuous evolution of mobile phone technology allows the commercialization of new mobile phones, which creates new digital investigation problems. Our focus in this area would be to perform R&D of mobile forensic techniques and tools.

Lab Staff

The Lab is managed by a Principle Investigator (PI) and three Co-PIs who are leading one research project each.

  • PI Lab & Co-PI Mobile Forensics:

    Professor Dr. Kashif Kifayat

  • Co-PI Social Media Forensics:

    Dr. Mehdi Hassan

  • Co-PI Computer Forensics:

    Dr. Zunera Jalil

For more information please visit: http://www.nccs.pk/collaborations/academic-patners/