News > SARC Press Releases
Backbone Security Releases Update to Steganography Hash Set
Expands Tool That Can Be Used To Detect Distribution of Child Pornography Over The
Internet
PRESS RELEASE
February 13, 2006
FAIRMONT, WV - Backbone Security's Steganography Analysis and Research Center (SARC)
has released version 2.0 of the Steganography Application Fingerprint
Database (SAFDB) that can be used to detect the use of information-hiding
applications to hide images of child pornography inside of other innocent looking
images or to conceal evidence of other types of criminal activity.
Steganography comes from the Greek words "steganos" which means "covered" and "graphy"
which means "writing." Thus, steganography literally means "covered writing." Steganography
applications can be used to hide information inside of another digital file and
are thus often referred to as information hiding applications.
Criminals can use these applications to conceal evidence of their criminal activity.
Producers and distributors of child pornography are known to be using steganography
applications to distribute the contraband material across the Internet.
The SARC was established in June, 2004, to create a national repository of steganography
applications and fingerprints, i.e. hash values that could be consulted by Federal,
state, and local law enforcement; intelligence community; and private sector investigators
when conducting forensic analysis of a seized computer. A hash value is a numeric
representation of a file computed with a complex mathematical algorithm that essentially
yields the fingerprint of the file.
Version 2.0 of SAFDB contains four different hash values for every file, also called
an artifact, associated with 250 steganography applications obtained as freeware
or shareware from the Internet or, in some cases, purchased as a commercially licensed
product. The database contains hash values computed with the CRC-32, MD5, SHA-1,
and SHA-256 algorithms. Future releases of SAFDB will contain hash values of all
the artifacts associated with additional steganography applications.
A license to SAFDB is provided free of charge to qualifying law enforcement, government,
and intelligence agencies. Please visit http://www.sarc-wv.com
for further information on registering for a free license to the database.
In addition to SAFDB, the SARC has also developed tools to scan for artifacts and
signatures of steganography applications. A signature is a unique hexadecimal byte
pattern left in carrier files after embedding a hidden message or image.
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.