University researchers to tackle computer fraud
The Scottish Enterprise Proof of Concept programme is to provide funding to computer experts at Napier University enabling them to develop a digital fingerprinting project – which began life as PHD research – through to commercialisation. The two-year project has been granted nearly £200,000.
The groundbreaking technology, codenamed ‘Digital DNA’, will help combat computer fraud. Its innovative collecting and analysing technique identifies sequences in user access of data leaving behind a digital fingerprint. The metric offers a higher degree of proof that a particular person has made any digital changes to data.
Jamie Graves, a research fellow at Napier’s School of Computing, explored the concept of digital DNA through his PhD. Having demonstrated the effectiveness of his ideas in the laboratory, he now hopes to use this funding to prove it in the wider world.
The increase in the amount of data stored on computers has led to a similar jump in computer crime as the rewards of data theft and other breaches grow accordingly. The Napier project could be of a huge benefit to those prosecuting such cases.
“A weakness of the current system is that it’s computer experts giving evidence on the basis that they believe a particular person accessed or changed data,” explains Jamie.
“What the digital DNA will do is give a much greater measure of confidence to such actions. I can see it being very big in areas such as compliance and auditing where organisations have to show proof of their controls over sensitive data and access to it.”
Don Smith, technical director at Edinburgh firm DNS, a leading information security company, believes the innovation could cut through existing layers of computer security technology. “It is a completely new perspective on tracking activity,” he said. “I am sure the industry will take a very close look at it.”