The RCMP, along with all Canadian law enforcement, is currently facing the dilemma of criminals using sophisticated encryption to circumvent and otherwise prevent investigators from lawfully accessing data seized during the course of criminal investigations.
The use of these encryption techniques by individuals engaging in illegal behaviour greatly diminishes their risk of prosecution. It is public knowledge that police can obtain judicial authority to search a device, but they cannot compel an individual to provide a password. This scenario greatly incentivizes individuals to use some form of encryption on all their data as a secondary insurance against legal prosecution.
The RCMP is looking to develop an AI system that can ingest material seized during an investigation and generate case specific word lists which will be utilized in an attempt to decrypt the seized data. This AI should be able to ingest and process forensic data files as the source material.
Desired outcomes and considerations
Essential (mandatory) outcomes
Proposed solutions must:
- Accept and process material of any size from common forensic file types. e.g. e01, ad1, dd, ex01.
- Generate subject-specific password word lists based on a user’s data activity, a user’s interests and passwords discovered on ingested forensic images.
- Process web history from common web browsers. e.g. Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari.
- Process common documents. e.g. MS Word, MS Excel, text files, Adobe.
- Export password derivatives in text format for use in decryption software.
Additional outcomes
Proposed solutions should:
- Identify common encrypted files from the device images. e.g. luks, bitlocker, truecrypt etc.
- Ingest known passwords into a database, and utilize said database to generate password derivatives.
- Provide a user-friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI).
- Initiate decryption jobs using generated password lists using common decryption software. e.g. Elcomsoft, Passware, Hashcat etc.
Eligibility Criteria
Solution proposals can only be submitted by a small business that meets all of the following criteria:
- for profit
- incorporated in Canada (federally or provincially)
- 499 or fewer full-time equivalent (FTE) employees
- research and development activities that take place in Canada
- 50% or more of its annual wages, salaries and fees are currently paid to employees and contractors who spend the majority of their time working in Canada
- 50% or more of its FTE employees have Canada as their ordinary place of work
- 50% or more of its senior executives (Vice President and above) have Canada as their principal residence
Application Deadline: December 16, 2021, 14:00 Eastern Standard Time
For More Information: RCMP AI decryption service Challenge