LEAVING a software vulnerability unpatched can give hackers a way to seize control of your computer. Such vulnerabilities can also be useful if you're in the digital forensics business.
So say Chris Hargreaves and Joe Rabaiotti at Cranfield University in Shrivenham, UK. They have found a way to use vulnerabilities to tease forensic evidence out of games consoles, smartphones and e-books, where access to the inner workings is restricted by the manufacturer.
In 2009, they were hired as investigators by a legal team appealing against the conviction of a vendor of so-called "modchips" for the Microsoft Xbox. Because these chips enable the console to run pirated games, the vendor was ruled to have broken copyright laws. The defence team thought that analysis of a "modded" console's random access memory (RAM) might reveal whether copyright laws had been breached.
Source:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527495.500-legal-team-hack-xbox-memory-for-defence-evidence.html
