Microsoft Software for Police Use Leaks onto P2P Sites

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After last week’s hot talks about Congress members bringing sensitive data home and inadvertently sharing it through file sharing software, now a new leak makes the headlines. Microsoft’s digital forensics software made its appearance on p2p networks, The Inquirer reports.

Dubbed COFEE (Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor) this tool was developed for as a small, accessible program that can fit on a USB drive to be used by police forces in PC forensics.

While the program is offered for free to police worldwide as an extra help in cybercrime cases like online fraud, identity theft, child pornography and illegal downloading, its use by civilians is strictly forbidden.

The irony is that the software was specifically developed for extreme ease of use but that simplicity might turn out to be a downfall as it allows about any Internet user to completely master it within minutes. The big worry now is that once in the hands of online criminals, the program would help them come up with the ‘antidote’ that would guarantee being one step ahead of police by removing incriminating information from their computers.

Microsoft said about COFEE that it "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."