The Trustless Operating System for sovereign computing.
The surge in digital evidence is both a boon and a burden for modern investigations. Computers, smartphones, and cloud accounts now accompany almost every case, in fact, digital evidence factors into roughly 90% of criminal cases. This wealth of information could solve crimes faster, but agencies face immense challenges in handling it.
The volume of data to process is overwhelming forensic teams worldwide. Hard drives can contain terabytes of information, and a single case might involve dozens of seized devices. Many forensic labs simply cannot keep up. Case backlogs measured in months or years have become common, some jurisdictions report thousands of devices waiting in line, with examinations delayed well over a year.
In one survey, a police unit admitted their digital forensic backlog was on the order of four years despite initial estimates of a few months. Such delays mean justice is delayed or even derailed, as evidence sits unanalyzed while crimes go unpunished or innocent people remain under suspicion.
As technology advances, so do the hurdles for forensics. Strong encryption on phones and computers can lock critical evidence behind unbreakable codes. Cloud computing scatters data across jurisdictions, requiring new legal and technical strategies to retrieve logs or messages.
The explosion of IoT devices and vehicle data means investigators must pull information from smart thermostats, cars, and wearables, sources unheard of a decade ago.
Traditional forensic tools, many built for the PC era, struggle to parse these new data sources and huge volumes. Techniques that worked ten years ago can fail on modern systems, forcing investigators into time-consuming manual analysis.
Breaches are still brutally expensive:
= global average breach cost, and 241 days = mean time to identify + contain. Check this link →
Unlike physical evidence, digital data is incredibly easy to tamper with or destroy. A simple booting of a suspect’s PC can inadvertently alter timestamps or metadata, undermining its court admissibility. Investigators must take care to copy data exactly (bit-for-bit) and avoid any changes, a process requiring specialized boot disks or write blockers.
Complicating matters, suspect devices might be infected with malware or booby-trapped to wipe data. Plugging such a device into a normal work computer could unleash a virus into the agency’s network. Forensic analysts often resort to dedicated “air-gapped” machines for examinations, but maintaining multiple isolated PCs is costly and inconvenient.
All these issues point to a need for a secure, controlled analysis environment. NONOS addresses this by providing an isolated operating system that can be booted on any machine to safely inspect drives and devices.
Because it runs without altering the host PC’s hard drive, an investigator using NONOS can examine evidence media without fear of contamination or accidental writes.
Even if the evidence contains live malware, it can’t escape the NONOS sandbox or persist after shutdown. In short, digital forensics professionals finally get a reliable, repeatable platform to tackle the data deluge, ensuring critical evidence is analyzed promptly and safely.
The Trustless Operating System for sovereign computing.