Meeting the Surge in Cybercrime Head-On, Voom Technologies, Inc. Releases the HardCopy 3P and DriveWiper 3

ST. PAUL, Minn., Oct. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Computer crimes have steadily and alarmingly increased over the past years.  The nature of some of these crimes consists of fraud, identify theft, and theft of intellectual property.  More horrific crimes include child pornography, solicitation and abduction.  A study done in 2006 by the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center concluded that one out of seven children receive an inappropriate solicitation while using a computer.  In recent testimony presented to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, FBI Assistant Director Gordon Snow noted a surge in the use of social networking sites over the last two years that "has given cyber thieves and child predators new, highly effective avenues" to victimize the innocent.

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In response to the ever expanding computer technology that opens these avenues, it falls upon the shoulders of computer forensic technology developers to exercise their expertise in the field of cyber forensics to create more advanced tools to facilitate the efforts of law enforcement in detecting and prosecuting these criminals.

Voom Technologies, Inc. (www.voomtech.com), a global leader in computer forensics, has once again responded to this call to action, just releasing their HardCopy 3P (HC3P) Forensic Duplicator and DriveWiper 3 (DW3) Forensic HDD Sanitizer.  These devices are specifically designed for law enforcement personnel and engineered for sophisticated operations, simplicity of use, and speed, while addressing the current economic climate and budget constraints imposed upon our justice agencies.

Voom's portable HardCopy 3P is so small and lightweight (under 1 lb.) that it can easily be taken directly to the suspect computer and quickly images the hard drive.  This device has two destinations ports, allowing the forensic investigator to create two duplicates simultaneously, one to be analyzed and one back-up, in a forensically-sound fashion and automatically handles hidden areas of the drive (HPA's and DCO's).  MD5 and SHA256 forensic verification can be run, not only on the data transfer, but again on a read from the duplicated drives (known as dual-pass hashing), allowing the examiner to ensure the forensic validity of the duplicates before leaving the crime scene.  This is essential to law enforcement's ability to utilize the evidence collected in a legally incontrovertible fashion.  

Duplicating at speeds up to 6 GB/minute, the HC3P can image a 300 GB drive to two drives while hashing in under an hour.  A less robust 80 GB drive can be duplicated in just over 20 minutes.  With this kind of performance, cybercrime detectives can start digging into the data quicker, with the confidence that their digital evidence is viable in a court of law.

Steve Bunting, a Senior Forensic Consultant with Forward Discovery, Inc. (www.forwarddiscovery.com), recommends the HC3P, stating, "I have been using HardCopy units since their inception and each new version has simply improved on what was already a tremendous product.  The HardCopy 3P is no exception.  The speed at which it images is significantly faster than the HardCopy 3.  When it encounters an HPA, it handles it on the fly and documents the details in the report.  I especially appreciate the improvements to the source ports.  By providing both a native SATA port and a native IDE port, a bridge is no longer required, making for fewer connections and ease of use.  Despite an increased interface, the size of the unit has remained small, making it ideal for field use.  It packs light and tight!  It's hard to imagine what improvements will be forthcoming in subsequent models as the HardCopy 3P seems near perfect."

The Voom DriveWiper 3 is a specialized portable device that simultaneously sanitizes three hard drives at once (i.e., rids drives of all data) to Department of Defense (DoD 5220.2-M) and U. S. Navy (NAVSO P-5239-10) specifications at speeds of up to 7.1 GB/minute per drive.  This device is critical to ensuring forensic soundness when recycling or disposing hard drives with highly sensitive data.  Further, it facilitates law enforcement's ability to permanently eradicate from drives the prolific child pornography by which generations of children have fallen victim.

Voom's CEO, David Biessener, stressed that Voom is committed to working with law enforcement in developing computer forensic products that address the needs of investigators.  Biessener stated, "One of our primary goals here at Voom is to ensure that forensic evidence is easily and speedily collected by examiners, is legally indisputable and products meet the budgetary needs of our already over-burdened law enforcement agencies.  We strive to make it easy for law enforcers to put the perpetrators of crimes against naive and innocent victims behind bars."

SOURCE Voom Technologies, Inc.