A leading NJ forensics expert shares thoughts on the BOE’s cyber “investigation”

Tino Kyprianou is the owner of Axiana, a Morristown-based company that specializes in cyber forensics.  His clients have included law firms, private investigation firms, corporations, and school systems.

Mr. Kyprianou is a Certified Fraud Examiner with the Association of Fraud Examiners.  He’s a member of the American College of Forensic Examiners Institute and the International Society of Forensic Computer Examiners.  He’s also a contributor of articles about cyber crime to the New Jersey Law Journal.

When I shared the scenario of the Montclair School District’s assessment test security breach with him, Mr. Kyprianou made a number of interesting points:

• The BOE authorized “investigation” SHOULD NOT be handled by BOE IT staff.  They don’t have the necessary expertise in cyber forensics to find the culprit, and it would be a conflict of interest for them to investigate a security vulnerability that they could have been responsible for.
• To truly find the answer(s) of how the breach occurred and who’s to blame, an independent, outside cyber forensics firm would need to be hired.
• Given the publicly available details about the incident, Mr. Kyprianou said that it would take a qualified cyber forensics expert two to three weeks at the most to locate the source of the breach.

On November 1, Mark Tabakin, the retained attorney for the Montclair BOE, said that he would be seeking the help of “information technology forensic experts” in his investigation of the security breach.

Questions about this investigation:

1. Are Tabakin’s “experts” employed by Montclair’s Central Office or Tabakin’s law firm?
2. Did he bring on independent, outside cyber forensics practitioners?  If so, what’s the name of the firm that he’s hired, and what are their credentials?
3. If a firm has been hired, do invoices exist of BOE authorized payments to the firm?

As is customary for all matters related to Montclair’s BOE, the answers to these questions haven’t been provided.  Perhaps a subpoena from the taxpayers of Montclair should be served to Board President Robin Kulwin in order to get the facts.