The world is inevitably moving towards a digital phase. Information can easily be accessed online, and that can compromise private information. Large companies and even the government need to keep secure vital information and avoid compromise to it. With the help of a digital forensics expert, it will be quick to trace people who have or attempted to compromise restricted information.
Traditional storage of data is slowly being phased out as everyone is going digital. The existence of voice command devices and web-connected refrigerators are a manifestation of a digital future. It will eventually become an era that all information will need to be examined. This is how foremost a digital forensics expert is and will be. From only being available for large companies to eventually being hired in personal homes for data safekeeping.
The law mandates and requires protection on essential data like customer information. Organizations that fail to do such will be held liable and punishable by law. The value of digital forensics experts holds essence in the company’s budget. Hiring an expert saves the organization from paying forensic software that can eventually find a glitch. Organizations, no matter how small, need digital protection as the digital space evolves. Anyone with a computer can easily hack information and use it for unlikely situations. What the organization can spend on digital forensics experts is more worth than keeping business at stake.
Digital forensics experts are essential to work with system administrators in an organization. The expert will provide safety practices on the computer and network routine maintenance for quick data recovery when a situation demands. An organization must keep safe information incase if a security incident.
A digital forensics expert is essential in preserving the credibility of the data he finds that can be used effectively in court. These experts are retrieving data of two types: persistent data stored in hard drives and volatile data stored in memory or online. The skills to retrieve and find information in this medium will be significantly essential to helping solve crimes.
People, mostly criminals, assume their safety once they have deleted traces of their actions from their devices. Loss of data as evidence is one of the reasons why some cases are unresolved. With the evolution of digital forensics, experts have found ways to retrieve such data to establish strong evidence to convict a suspect. The type of cases that benefit from digital forensics is child pornography and identity theft.
Digital forensics experts communicate to executives in organizations and people in the courtroom to describe complex information that a civilian has no idea about. These experts are also curious problem solvers as they analyze the data they have retrieved and see if it’s of value to an investigation. The more curious an expert is, the more he will find golden nuggets of information to help solve a crime.
Digital forensics is a pricey investment. It will take a chunk of the budget to hire and train a team and to purchase equipment necessary for the job. Law enforcement agencies are starting to hire civilians to perform the role of digital forensics. This is a good tip to save money and still pursue investigations successfully. Most organizations that employ digital forensics experts are business and financial companies, consulting firms, and computer companies. There are also high-value individuals such as people in show business that hire digital forensics experts to take care of their digital public relations.
Digital forensics is deemed to be more relevant now than it was a decade ago.
Joseph is an experienced computer forensics investigator currently working with Computer Forensics Lab in London, UK. He has conducted extensive research in digital forensics and has contributed to open source projects creating computer forensics tools for Linux and Windows environments. He is currently a member of the British Computer Society (BCS) Cybersecurity Group based in the United Kingdom. As a member of BCS, the Chatered Institute for IT, he has contributed to the debate in setting standards and guidelines in the digital forensics profession.