On the Development of a Digital Forensics Curriculum

Computer Crime and computer related incidents continue their prevalence and frequency, resulting in losses approaching billions of dollars. To fight against these crimes and frauds, it is urgent to develop digital forensics education programs to train a suitable workforce that can effectively investigate computer crimes and incidents. There is presently no standard to guide the design of digital forensics curriculum for an academic program. In this research, previous work on digital forensics curriculum design and existing education programs are thoroughly investigated. Both digital forensics educators and practitioners were surveyed and results were analyzed to determine the industry and law enforcement need for skills and knowledge for their digital forensic examiners. Based on the survey results and the topics that make up certificate programs in digital forensics, topics that are desired in digital forensics courses are identified. Finally, based on the research findings, six digital forensics courses and required topics are proposed to be offered in both undergraduate and graduate digital forensics programs

Air Force Institute of Technology Research Report 2007

This report summarizes the research activities of the Air Force Institute of Technology’s Graduate School of Engineering and Management. It describes research interests and faculty expertise; lists student theses/dissertations; identifies research sponsors and contributions; and outlines the procedures for contacting the school. Included in the report are: faculty publications, conference presentations, consultations, and funded research projects. Research was conducted in the areas of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Electro-Optics, Computer Engineering and Computer Science, Systems and Engineering Management, Operational Sciences, Mathematics, Statistics and Engineering Physics

Digital Forensics Tool Interface Visualization

Recent trends show digital devices utilized with increasing frequency in most crimes committed. Investigating crime involving these devices is labor-intensive for the practitioner applying digital forensics tools that present possible evidence with results displayed in tabular lists for manual review. This research investigates how enhanced digital forensics tool interface visualization techniques can be shown to improve the investigator\u27s cognitive capacities to discover criminal evidence more efficiently. This paper presents visualization graphs and contrasts their properties with the outputs of The Sleuth Kit (TSK) digital forensic program. Exhibited is the textual-based interface proving the effectiveness of enhanced data presentation. Further demonstrated is the potential of the computer interface to present to the digital forensic practitioner an abstract, graphic view of an entire dataset of computer files. Enhanced interface design of digital forensic tools means more rapidly linking suspicious evidence to a perpetrator. Introduced in this study is a mixed methodology of ethnography and cognitive load measures. Ethnographically defined tasks developed from the interviews of digital forensics subject matter experts (SME) shape the context for cognitive measures. Cognitive load testing of digital forensics first-responders utilizing both a textual-based and visualized-based application established a quantitative mean of the mental workload during operation of the applications under test. A t-test correlating the dependent samples\u27 mean tested for the null hypothesis of less than a significant value between the applications\u27 comparative workloads of the operators. Results of the study indicate a significant value, affirming the hypothesis that a visualized application would reduce the cognitive workload of the first-responder analyst. With the supported hypothesis, this work contributes to the body of knowledge by validating a method of measurement and by providing empirical evidence that the use of the visualized digital forensics interface will provide a more efficient performance by the analyst, saving labor costs and compressing time required for the discovery phase of a digital investigation

Graduate Digital Forensics Education at the Air Force Institute of Technology

(AFIT), currently offers a graduate-level introductory course in digital forensics. Students are introduced and exposed to several challenges and topics in the digital forensics course. The course addresses the ethical and legal procedures as well as basic forensic science principles in only the most general manner. A larger percentage of lecture and lab time is spent discussing the technical details of incident response and media analysis. The detail into the network forensics and digital device analysis topics start to breach technical details but not to the level of attempting mastery. This course provides our students with real world digital forensics experience to prepare them for the challenges they may face in postgraduate employment. 1