News > SARC Press Releases
Grant Backs Fairmont Technology Project
Effort to Detect, Decode Information in Computer Files
PRESS RELEASE
September 8, 2005
WASHINGTON, DC - A $493,322 federal grant will support a West Virginia effort to
detect and decode the information that criminals hide in digital documents, Congressman
Alan B. Mollohan, D-W. Va., said Wednesday.
Mollohan put money for the Steganography Analysis and Research Center (SARC) in
the U. S. Justice Department's 2005 budget. Justice officials recently notified
him that they are releasing the funds for the Fairmont- based project, established
in June 2004 with an earlier earmark he secured.
"Like any technology, the Internet can be used for good purposes as well as bad,"
Mollohan said. "The SARC was created to fight one of the bad uses: the hiding of
criminal material or messages in harmless-looking computer files."
Backbone Security is leading the effort from its offices at Veterans' Square. Its
collaborators include Fairmont State University and the National White Collar Crime
Center (NW3C) operations at the I-79 Technology Park.
Steganography, which means "covered writing," is a centuries- old practice of exchanging
information by covert means, such as invisible ink. The electronic age has spawned
new steganography techniques, allowing data to be hidden in digital files in ways
that are extremely difficult to detect.
This digital steganography represents a significant threat, according to SARC Director
Jim Wingate. Criminals - including terrorists, child pornographers and identity
thieves - can conceal their activities through computer applications that are freely
available on the Internet and simple to use.
Audio and video files are among those that can be modified to carry hidden data.
SARC's first task was to begin compiling a database of the information- hiding programs
and the computer files associated with them. By knowing the tools that criminals
use to conceal data, Wingate said, investigators will be better able to detect the
presence of digital steganography in media they examine. Some 230 programs and 15,000
files have been collected in the database to date.
Seeking out additional ones, and tracking changes to those already in hand, will
be a focus of SARC's efforts in the coming year.
The team also will continue to research techniques for extracting hidden information
once it is detected. Like the database, the results of that research will be shared
with local, state and federal law enforcement authorities.
"Digital communication is a new and expanding frontier, and curbing the ability
of criminals to exploit it for unlawful purposes must be a national priority," Mollohan
said.
"I'm pleased that members of our West Virginia high-tech community have taken a
lead role in digital steganography research. Like them, I am hopeful that this work
results in useful new tools for our law enforcement professionals," he said.
Mollohan obtained funding for the SARC initiative through his position as top Democrat
on the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds the Justice Department.
About the SARC - The SARC is a Center of Excellence in digital steganography research and development within Backbone Security. The SARC has established the worlds largest commercially available repository of digital steganography applications, fingerprints, and signatures and has developed industry leading computer forensics and network security steganalysis tools for detecting and extracting information hidden with digital steganography applications.
About Backbone Security - In addition to the world class digital steganography research and development conducted in the SARC, Backbone is an Approved Scanning Vender (ASV) certified by the Payment Card Industry-(PCI) Security Standards Council to conduct automated PCI Data Security Standard compliance assessments with a One-Stop Scanning Solution.