Preparing to be a Forensic Accountant - Focus on Computer Forensics - Part 3 (Steganography)
June 27, 2025
Webinar
1.6 CPE
Instructor
Lynn Fountain
Preparing to be a Forensic Accountant - Focus on Computer Forensics - Part 3 (Steganography)
View Bio
Instructor
Lynn
Fountain
View Bio
Lynn Fountain
Bio
Lynn Fountain, CGMA, CRMA, MBA
Overland Park, Kansas
Lynn Fountain has over 35 years of experience spanning public accounting, corporate accounting and consulting. 20 years of her experience has been working in the areas of internal and external auditing. She is a subject matter expert in multiple fields including internal audit, ethics, fraud evaluations, Sarbanes-Oxley, enterprise risk management, governance, financial management and compliance and she has held two Chief Audit Executive positions for international companies. She currently is engaged in her own consulting and training practice and has trained internationally. Ms. Fountain is a discussion leader for the AICPA for numerous classes as well as conducting her own various training courses. Topics include fraud and forensic courses for both profit and not-for profit, internal controls for large and small entities, COSO 2013, ethics, and risk management and various leadership courses.
Ms. Fountain is the author of three separate technical books released in 2015. The first book entitled “Raise the Red Flag – The Internal Auditors Guide to Fraud Evaluations” was published by the Institute of Internal Auditors Research Foundation and released in April 2015. She will be a featured presenter at the Institute of Internal Auditors International convention in July 2016 conducting a half-day training on her book, “Raise The Red Flag”. Her second book “Leading The Internal Audit Function” was released in October 2015 by Taylor & Francis Publications. This book serves as the initial launch for a series of leading practice internal audit and information technology publications. In addition, her third book “Ethics and the Internal Auditor’s Dilemma” was released winter of 2016.
Ms. Fountain obtained her BSBA from Pittsburg State University and her MBA from Washburn University in Kansas. She has her CGMA, CRMA credentials and CPA certificate.
www.lynnfountain.net
fountainlynn1@gmail.com
This course is a complement to our series on Becoming a Forensic Accountant and the focus of the course is on steganography techniques. Steganography is the art and science of embedding secret messages in a cover message in such a way that no one, apart from the sender and intended recipient, suspects the existence of the message. The first use of steganography can be traced to 440 BC when ancient Greece, people wrote messages on wood and covered it with wax, that acted as a covering medium Romans used forms of Invisible Inks, to decipher those hidden messages light or heat were used. During World War II the Germans introduced microdots, which were complete documents, pictures, and plans reduced in size to the size of a dot and were attached to normal paperwork. Null Ciphers were also used to hide unencrypted secret messages in an innocent looking message. Given the amount of data being generated and transmitted electronically, it’s no surprise that numerous methods of protecting that data have evolved. There are various types of steganography: Text Steganography
Hiding information inside the text files. This involves changing format of existing text, changing words in a text, generating random character sequences or using context-free grammars to generate readable texts. Image Steganography
Process of hiding text in an image without distorting the picture. Video Steganography
Technique to hide any kind of files into a cover video file. Audio Steganography
The secret message is embedded into an audio signal which alters the binary sequence of the corresponding audio file. Network Steganography
The process of utilizing active network protocols as carriers to transmit a covert message, undetectable by an uninformed party, from a host to its destination. This session will review these methods and also discuss relevant software.
