FREETOOL Testathon 2021
The FREETOOL Project (Free Reliable Tools for Investigating Cybercrime) has been running since 2013 and has developed a suite of 12 tools which are freely available to the law enforcement community via FREETOOL Hub.
In June 2021 UCD CCI held a “FREETOOL Testathon” welcoming back our team of developers and 160 police officers testers from 25 countries in Europe and beyond, to thoroughly test the 12 tools that have been developed to date and get feedback from users.
The Testathon was an opportunity for users to meet the developers and experience the suite of tools in a series of scenario-based exercises. During the event, participants were asked to provide feedback on the effectiveness and suitability of the tools for conducting cybercrime investigations. The Testathon was open to any agent of a government or public service body that has a mandate to investigate breaches of regional legislation. This includes police officers, revenue investigators and members of national CERTS and defence forces.
The process
This time, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Testathon ’21 was an online event. The event was held during the month of June 2021, with three online (Zoom webinar) sessions per week. Each session covered one of the tools and comprised a demo from the developers, time for users to download and test the tool, followed by feedback, both “live” and after the session via surveys. Each session had a challenge to be solved, with *prizes, prestige, and national pride for the taking.(*Prizes provided by UCD CCI)
New tools
A new tool that was developed since the previous testathon was launched. H@X is a hex viewer/editor that helps to visualise structured binary data and is good for training digital forensic investigators, explaining (e.g. in court) where data was found as well as being extremely useful during an investigation.
Outputs
The developers received a lot of valuable feedback to extend and refine the tools during the remainder of the project.
Freetool hub
The Tools are now hosted on a hub by UCD CCI. Since February 2021 we have welcomed 1300 new users bringing the total to 2500 users and this is growing fast. The community can get access to the tools using the FREETOOL Hub where end-users can not only get access to the tools but also discuss and share experiences via the community forums available on the Hub.
Join the community
If you would like to join the FREETOOL community access the tools please visit https://thefreetoolproject.eu/#ACCESS and follow the instructions.
https://thefreetoolproject.eu/