Vernal Douglas of Brooklyn was recently arrested along with three other men in connection with a more than yearlong investigation into the steady stream of illegal guns flowing into the city, according to the New York Daily News.

The investigation relied on digital evidence that allowed the police to trace the weapons all along their route. Douglas, a conductor for the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority, had been making frequent trips to meet with a contact in South Carolina to purchase pistols which he then sold to another man in New York, Montoun Hart. Hart then resold the firearms to contacts in the city.

The investigators were able to put the pieces together using wiretaps and examining the cellphone text and picture messages between Douglas, his supplier in South Carolina and Hart. These messages included pictures of many of the guns involved. Using the information gained in the investigation, undercover officers were able to purchase 44 guns directly from Hart before making the arrests and charging the men on counts including criminal possession and sale of a firearm as well as conspiracy charges.

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Recently NECN.com reported on a cyberattack that caused a widespread outage for the University of Vermont Health Network, Vermont’s largest hospital. Hospital patients were unable to log into their personal portals to access their personal health information as the IT staff and outside forensic examiners worked to document the incident and begin recovery.

While it has yet to be confirmed, it seems likely this attack was related to a rash of recent ransomware attacks affecting hospitals all over the country. In fact the FBI released a warning in late October alerting the healthcare industry that cyber criminals were stepping up efforts against hospitals and other healthcare related systems in an attempt to extort ransoms for the return of encrypted data. This warning would have been dire even in the best of times but with the world still solidly in the midst of a global pandemic, the situation is all the more troubling.

While much of the computer systems appeared down at the hospital, officials reported that for the most part all was operating normally as they have plans in place for these types of incidents. The ER was still able to handle local trauma incidents; however, reports indicate that some elective procedures were rescheduled to ease pressure.

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According to CrimeOnline, Prosecutors in New Jersey are looking into the death of a local Freehold woman, Stephanie Parze, who disappeared on September 30, 2019, and was later found dead off of a highway months later. Investigators have performed digital forensics to help ascertain clues as to who may be responsible for her death.

An immediate suspect of Parze’s death was her ex-boyfriend, John Ozbilgen. A forensic review was performed on Ozbilgen’s cell phone and multiple images of child pornography were located on the device. Ozbilgen was arrested and once bail was posted, he was found dead in his home a few days later. His death was ruled a suicide.

Prosecutors have now begun looking into Ozbilgen’s parents, as they believe there were text messages of interest sent and received with the parents after he allegedly killed Parze. When investigators asked the Ozbilgens for their cellphone passwords to perform a forensic analysis, the couple reportedly refused. There is currently an open investigation regarding the parent’s refusal, and it is possible they may face obstruction of justice charges.

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A year ago on November 3^rd, Jessica Lopez, a New York woman, disappeared after being spotted at a motel in the early morning. After an initial investigation, her car was found abandoned in a nearby parking lot. A trail of electronic evidence assisted prosecutors in finally charging a man with her presumed death.

Upon her disappearance, authorities conducted tons of searches to locate Lopez. Cadaver dogs had been deployed, and police followed up on more than 440 leads in the case. The search even stretched to a landfill in Northern Pennsylvania, where a majority of the trash near Lopez’s residence ends up. Even though a body has yet to be recovered, police are moving forward with charges against Lopez’s ex-boyfriend, Matthew Mercado.

Mercado has been a suspect since the initial investigation phase. Shortly after Lopez disappeared, Mercado was charged with breaking into a different room at the same motel where Lopez was last seen. Prosecutors believe that Mercado killed Lopez when she tried to leave the motel in the early morning of November 3^rd, 2019. A trail of electronic evidence shows Mercado withdrawing $15,000 from Lopez’s bank account and then deleting text messages the two had exchanged.

Mercado is currently being held on $3 million bond after he pled not guilty to murder and grand larceny.

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Terry Spencer from the Associated Press reports that when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis went to cast his ballot earlier last week he was initially refused because someone had changed his address online. When attempting to vote last Monday, October 26, he was told that the voting address had been changed from the governor’s mansion to another address in West Palm Beach, FL just over 400 miles away. The problem with the address was promptly resolved and DeSantis contacted the Florida Department of Law Enforcement about the illegal change of address. Law enforcement was able to determine that the address was changed online from a residence in Naples, FL.

Officers went to the residence where they found 20 year-old Anthony Guevara who admitted to changing DeSantis’ address through the elections website in Leon County. “He told agents he gained access by using the governor’s birth date, which he got from Wikipedia” Spencer writes.

The Leon County Elections Supervisor has said that there are two online systems that allow for voters to change their address. One requires only the voter’s birth date and that is the one that Guevara has been accused of using. “It has safeguards to prevent hackers from executing mass changes” Spencer reports. The second system, requires additional information such as the person’s driver licenses number, issuance date, and their last four digits of their social security number to change an address.

Guevara has been charged with accessing a computer without authorization and illegally altering voting records. Both charges are third-degree felonies and are punishable with up to five years in prison.

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According to the Hill County Journal, Jennifer Bardeaux and Tadeo Graces Jr. were arrested on October 20^th and charged with Tampering with Physical Evidence. The charges stem from an ongoing investigation by the Kerrville Police department in Kerr County Texas regarding the death of Gideon Barideaux, Jennifer’s two-year-old son.

The investigation began in August when police responded to a call about an injured child. Jennifer told the officers that the injuries were the result of a fall earlier in the day; however, officers and medical staff did not believe the injuries were consistent with the fall. Unfortunately, despite being taken to a local medical center and eventually being transferred to San Antonio University hospital by air ambulance, Gideon died as a result of the injuries three days later.

Over the course of the investigation, authorities interviewed both Jennifer and Tadeo regarding the matter and both maintained the child had been hurt because of a fall, a fact the forensic medical examiner’s reports have disputed. Cell phones belonging to both parties seemed to point to a different story when they were analyzed. An examination of their phones revealed Jennifer and Tadeo had each deleted a significant amount of content relating to the incident allowing offers to obtain arrest warrants for both parties based on this alleged evidence tampering.

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According to a federal racketeering indictment filed against Trayvon Hall, the apparent leader of the Baltimore Eight Tray Gangster Crips, and nine others, the government has been leveraging numerous pieces of digital evidence to make its case.

Some of this digital evidence includes group text conversations in which Hall stated that in order to be a part of the gang, new members must kill a member of a rival gang, the Black Guerilla Family or BFG.  Other text messages are also included in the indictment. In one, Hall requested photos of BFG gang members. Two men’s photos were sent in response and within a matter of weeks both men were killed in separate incidents. At the time of the most recent indictment, Hall was already in custody stemming from a gun charge that was the result of a post on social media he made of himself holding a gun at a firing range.  A past felony conviction prohibited Hall from possessing any firearms.

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A Pennsylvania man has been put behind bars after being charged with a sexual assault on a juvenile female. The man originally denied the relationship, but a digital forensic investigation of the cell phones involved proved otherwise, according to The Wyoming County Press Examiner.

Police allege that Jamie Turner carried out a sexually inappropriate relationship between himself and the juvenile, and he now faces charges of statutory sexual assault, corruption of minors, and indecent assault of a person less than 16 years of age.

Turner’s actions were discovered when the mother of the juvenile discovered some text messages on her daughter’s cell phone that were sexual in nature. After going through the phone, she discovered there was an ongoing relationship that she was unaware of.

Turner initially denied knowing the victim’s cell phone number, but a digital forensic analysis of the devices involved showed another story. During a three-day period, the pair sent each other 500 text messages, and over a 2-month period, they had shared almost 14,000 messages. The police specified that many of the texts suggested “sexually inappropriate behavior between the two.”

Turner is currently in Wyoming County Jail unable to meet the bail of $100,000.

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In 2004, Lisa Montgomery murdered Bobbie Jo Stinnett, who was pregnant at the time. Montgomery removed the baby from Stinnett’s stomach and abducted the child as an attempt to pass the child off as her own. The crime is considered one of the most heinous murders the state of Missouri has seen. The result of the case is that the first woman in almost 70 years is to be executed by the US government.

The crime began to take place when Montgomery starting using the online alias “Darlene Fischer” and reached out to Stinnett for more information regarding a litter of puppies that Stinnett was advertising. The two agreed to meet at Stinnett’s residence, and the meeting turned deadly when Montgomery strangled Stinnett with a telephone cord, cut into Stinnett’s abdomen, and removed the baby from Stinnett’s body. The baby ultimately survived and was evaluated to be in healthy condition.

Stinnett’s mother informed police about the woman scheduled to stop by her daughter’s residence to get a puppy. With that information, police performed a digital forensic investigation of Stinnett’s computer and discovered the “Darlene Fischer” profile. The IP address associated with the account was traced to Montgomery’s residence.

After questioning, Montgomery eventually confessed to the murder and was sentenced to death in 2008. The DOJ released a statement revealing that Montgomery will be executed by lethal injection on December 8, 2020.

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October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month and Beth Anne Steele of the Oregon FBI has provided an article with tips on how to stay safe online. In their tech tip article they discuss two fairly large topics, ransomware and business email compromise (BEC). Ransomware is a type of malware which consists of malicious software that locks a computer user out of their system, and will return access to the system via a decryption key once a ransom demand has been met, generally in some form of payment to a threat actor. BEC is when a threat actor impersonates a business executive or employee in order to gain access to specific information such as personally identifiable information (PII) or requests that a fraudulent payment be made. “BEC has cost victims billions of dollars over the last five years” Steele writes.

Steele then goes on to explain two components that usually are seen in these types of attacks, spoofing and phishing. Spoofing is when the threat actor disguises an illegitimate email address, website, phone number, etc. as a trusted source, “often just by changing one letter, symbol, or number” she writes.

Phishing will often make use of spoofing techniques to convince a user to download a malicious file or click on a malicious link. Phishing, much like spoofing, causes a user to think that they have received a legitimate communication from a trusted person or business but in reality it is a fake communication.

Steele ends the article with tips on how to protect yourself, including:

• Examine email addresses, website URLs, and spelling in correspondence carefully.
• Use multi-factor authentication for accounts that allow it.
• Don’t download or click on unsolicited email attachments or links.
• Be cautious on what information you provide or share on social media, as things like pet names, schools attended, birthdays, etc. are commonly used security account question answers or passwords.

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