[Infowarrior] - Illegal copies of Microsoft Cofee spills onto the web

[Richard Forno]

(c/o KM)

Illegal copies of Microsoft Cofee spills onto the web
Author:Karl Flinders
Posted: 10:42 09 Nov 2009

http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/11/09/238474/illegal-copies-of-microsoft-cofee-spills-onto-the-web.htm

Microsoft software that is designed to help the police access  
encrypted data is loose on the web.
The software, known as Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor  
(Cofee), has been put on file-sharing site, according to reports on  
the web. It is illegal for unauthorised people to use the software or  
download it.

The software helps law enforcement agencies access details about  
crimes before criminals can wipe the information.

"Cofee brings together a number of common digital forensics  
capabilities into a fast, easy-to-use, automated tool for first  
responders. And Cofee is being provided [free] to law enforcement  
around the world," said Microsoft.

Police officers with basic computer skills can be taught to use the  
software in less than 10 minutes. "This enables the officer to take  
advantage of the same common digital forensics tools used by experts  
to gather important volatile evidence, while doing little more than  
simply inserting a USB device into the computer," said Microsoft.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos said “The genie  
is out of the bottle.”

“Microsoft and the computer crime authorities will be mightily upset  
that this was leaked onto the internet for anyone to download via file- 
sharing sites.”

“Some will be worried that unauthorised users may now have access to  
such a tool for their own nefarious purposes, but I would also worry  
that computer criminals could analyse Cofee, and write code that would  
identify that it is trying to run on their computer and intercept it,  
securely wiping incriminating data from their hard drives.”