The Increased Need for Digital Forensics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

The Increased Need for Digital Forensics - Essay Example es, especially cyber crime, there has been a heightened demand for digital forensic professionals to support law enforcement and judicial systems at all levels in order to prosecute these crimes successfully. Digital forensics, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is a specialized private detective who examines various items of technology in the pursuit of locating evidence related to a criminal act (Tucker, 9). Digital forensics are also utilized in the business world as a means to provide solutions to certain business issues, however digital forensics for business is far less prevalent than in criminal analysis. Digital forensics requires the technician to examine devices such as the PDA, laptop or cellular phone in the pursuit of various digital clues which lead to either support or refute claims of suspected criminal activity. A digital forensic scientist, searching the digital contents of a computer printer, would look for potential evidence such as time and date stamps, images still retrievable on the printer’s paper roller, or even the specific network identity of the printer if it was, indeed, attached to an online network (Ashcroft, 18). If the owner of this hypot hetical printer was alleged to have been involved in a child pornography ring, as one example, residual ink images left on the roller or various computer files buried in the printer’s hard disk might indicate whether a given alibi is valid or whether the individual has actually been distributing sexually explicit, youth materials. The personal computer and the laptop provide a myriad of potential forensic evidence in the event that a crime has been perpetrated. In this situation, forensic experts examine personal email, image/graphics files, calendars, address books and document files (Ashcroft, 10) as a means to find out whether the individual (or group) can be linked to the criminal behavior. Computer-created files, such as cookies, back-up files, temporary files and hidden files