Visualizing thumb drive information

Abstract

Thumb drive is one of portable memory storage that widely used by people. It is popularly used because of the size. It is small in physical size, hence it easy to bring anywhere. Beside the usage of thumb drive bring benefits to the computer user, it also may be used to do crime or as a medium to do the crimes such as used to steal private and confidential data and spread the virus in targeted computer. Luckily, Windows operating system stores all the information of the thumb drive that had been connected to the machine. The information is stored in Windows Registry. Windows Registry in a Windows operating system act as a database of a machine that stores all the system configuration, hardware and software used in that computer, users of the computer, and information regarding the current user of the computer. Thus, the digital crime investigator and security analyst may identify the thumb drive that use to do the crime based on information available in the Windows Registry. This research examined on the type of thumb drive information stored in Windows Registry. A visualization technique was proposed which helps the investigator to search thumb drive information directly from Windows Explorer without using the Registry Editor tool to search the information. It may help them to cut the time of searching the information. Then, the user satisfaction on using the technique was measured by conducting a testing and evaluation session. Two security analysts were appointed to testing and evaluate the user’s satisfaction by answering questionnaire at the end of the session. The collected data from the technique and evaluation phase are then analyzed. As the result, the respondents satisfied with the technique by giving average score 3.9 for format element, 4.5 for ease of use, and 4.75 out of 5 marks for both timeliness and satisfaction with the proposed technique speed.