How To Conduct Computer Forensic Investigation

By Roger McDonald


Cybercrimes are increasing with each day that is passing. The modern criminals do not break into banks anymore like they used to do. Instead, they join modern universities and learn computer skills, which they later use in hacking into banks and stealing millions of money. These criminal activities no longer require the corporation of several individuals. All it takes is a single person who is well skilled and good computing equipment. This is what computer forensic investigation entails.

Digital forensic investigation as a field is now important to law enforcement with the change in crimes. It is now an important task to protect private citizens through tracking of mischievous activities done by criminals online. Tracking digital activities enables law enforcement personnel to link information stored digitally to physical evidence collected on criminal activities.

Computer forensics enables investigators to determine premeditated criminal intent, which may assist in avoiding cyber-crimes in the future. Five procedures are involved for one to succeed in this work. Such procedures assist investigators to very serious and revealing investigations. Policy development, evidence acquisition, evidence examination, evidence assessment, and lastly documentation and reporting are the procedures.

The first rule to successful cyber investigation is to set and operate by strict procedures and guidelines in an organization. The procedures are meant to standardize operations and help workers to avoid engaging in risky activities that may expose IT systems to cyber threats. The procedures also help investigators to do their job without hindrance or breaching of organizational standards and best practices.

These processes may involve incidents where the investigators are given authority to retrieve digital evidence. They also lay down the procedure for recovering evidence, storage, and documentation among others. Individuals who are authorized to take part in such activities need to be specified with the type of actions they are allowed to take. This makes it possible to track actions back to those who did it without making the collected evidence vulnerable.

There exist much tasks and responsibilities that computer forensic investigators do. Their career is about collecting digital data from computers to be presented in legal cases and to law enforcement. Safeguarding computers from cyber threats, analyzing data, providing reports and feedback, and recovering files is also part of the job. The investigators may also be physically in a court of law as expert witnesses.

Qualifying to work in this field requires one to have a bachelor degree in computer forensics. Besides that, one can have a degree in a related course. One may also join a community college and study a suitable course for two years before they can transfer to a four-year university or college to become holders of a bachelor degree. There are multiple starting points in this field and one can start with low academic qualifications and rise over time.

Getting certified in this field increases the chances of a person landing a job. The job position being applied determines the requirements an individual is needed to have. There are certain job positions which require more than a bachelor degree and job experience.




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