A Digital Forensics Profiling Methodology for the Cyberstalker

Cyberstalking has many new manifestations with the opportunities offered by modern technology. It is a growing issue that presents significant distress to its victims. This type of crime presents difficulty to computer forensic investigators in large amounts of digital evidence accumulated over time and in offender apprehension. There is currently little research in the profiling the cyberstalker through a digital investigation. However, techniques employed for dead-end offline investigations, including criminal profiling are also be applied to cybercrime. This research focuses on developing a profiling methodology for profiling the cyberstalker. We adopted the Behavioural Evidence Analysis methodology to the digital investigation process and attempted to construct our profiling methodology. The methodology was evaluated by using a simulation of stalking behaviours to produce a technical, as well as a criminal profile. The aim of this work is to provide a starting point on the profiling of the cyberstalker. The investigators could then proceed with informed assumptions about the offender, according to his digital traces and also achieve reduced time for the digital investigation.