19th July 2021, Kathmandu
Computer forensics is the application of investigation and analysis techniques to amass and preserve evidence from a particular computing contrivance in a way that is felicitous for presentation in a court of law.
Computer forensics aims to perform a structured investigation and maintain a documented chain of evidence to ascertain precisely what transpired on a computing contrivance and who was responsible for it.
Digital forensics commences with the accumulation of information in a way that maintains its integrity. Investigators then analyze the data or system to determine if it was transmuted, how it was transmuted, and who made the transmutations. The utilization of computer forensics isn’t always tied to malefaction.
The forensic process is additionally utilized as a component of data instauration processes to amass data from a crashed server, failed drive, reformatted operating system (OS), or other situations where a system has unexpectedly ceased working.
IMPORTANCE OF DIGITAL FORENSIC
In the civil and malefactor equity system, computer forensics avails ascertain the integrity of digital evidence presented in court cases.
As computers and other data-amassing contrivances are utilized more frequently in every aspect of life, digital evidence and the forensic process used to accumulate, preserve and investigate it has become more paramount in solving malefactions and other licit issues.
The average person never visually perceives much of the information modern contrivances accumulate.
For instance, the computers in cars perpetually accumulate information on when the driver brakes, shifts, and transmutes speed without being vigilant.
However, this information can prove critical in solving a licit matter or a malefaction, and computer forensics often plays a role in identifying and preserving that information.
Digital evidence isn’t just utilizable in solving digital-world malefactions, such as data larceny, network breaches, and illicit online transactions. It’s withal used to solve physical world malefactions, such as burglary, assault, hit-and-run accidents, and murder. Businesses often utilize a multilayered data management, data governance, and network security strategy to keep proprietary information secure.
DIGITAL FORENSICS IN CYBERSECURITY
People who work with digital forensics in cybersecurity are on the front lines in the fight against cybercrime. They’re the people who amass, process, preserve, and analyze computer-cognate evidence.
They avail identify network susceptibilities and then develop ways to mitigate them. They go deep inside networks, computers, and smartphones in search of evidence of malefactor activity. And they run counterintelligence against hackers, malefactors, and others with nefarious intentions.
And they utilize scientific investigatory techniques to do it.
USES OF DIGITAL FORENSICS IN CYBERSECURITY
These days, anyone who utilizes the cyber world benefits from digital forensics in cybersecurity. That’s because any company that amasses data from internet users employs people who fight and investigate cybercrime.
Agencies and organizations have to be hyper-vigilant with the data they accumulate and bulwark, so they are perpetually testing their systems, probing for susceptibilities, and aggressively pursuing the people who hack into networks to commit malefactions.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Homeland Security, the FBI, Target Corp., the military, local and verbally express law enforcement, and proximately every bank uses digital forensics in cybersecurity to bulwark people utilizing the cyber world.
How Digital Forensics in Cyber Security Makes a Difference
The field of digital forensics in cybersecurity is exhilarating because it makes a tangible difference in the lives of people across the country and around the world.
The professionals who work in the industry have availed catch people dealing in illicit pornography. They have availed bring killers to equity. They’ve tracked terrorists, located missing people, and found otherwise mundane employees who were purloining millions of dollars.
In fact, the field is so paramount that it authentically spawned its very own television show. In 2015 and 2016, CBS engendered CSI: Cyber, which availed light on how the industry avails solve malefactions.
Nepal Police Brings Digital Forensics Technology In Utilization
In the last few months, the magnification of cybercrime has incremented enormously. According to one report, Nepal faced around 800 cyberattacks last year. More numbers of cyber malefactions can be anticipated if the flow will not be controlled in time.
According to the International ecumenical trend, people under the age group of 12-67 have a high risk of experiencing cyber attacks.
Nepal is very incipient with terms like cyber attacks and cyber malefactions. Still, there is a lag of felicitous laws and policies regarding cybersecurity in Nepal. Since the regime is apathetic to prioritize the ICT sector, the area of cybersecurity is moving towards a perplexing situation.
But in recent days, for many of the Nepalese, the threat regarding cybersecurity has been one of the major issues. Virtually all governmental and non-governmental organizations are relying on digitals media to consummate their customary task. However, they are still incognizant of cyber attacks and quantify to be secured from it.
39 cyber malefaction cognate cases were filed in 2013/14 against 19 in 2013-14. Many cases go unreported due to trepidation of retribution from the perpetrators. E-mail larceny, phishing, data hacks, and online fraud are paramount forms of cyber malefactions in the country.
Recently, Malefaction Investigation Division handed over much-needed digital forensic equipment to the Central Investigation Bureau and Metropolitan investigation Bureau.
THT reported that equipment avail denudes and interprets electronic data while preserving any evidence in its pristine form in the course of conducting the structured investigation by recuperating, amassing, storing, identifying, and validating the data to track down past events.
STATUS OF CYBER FORENSICS IN NEPAL
- The Nepal Police has established a Digital Forensics Technology (10th December 2015).
- 95 percent of malefactor activities at present occur with the utilization of some form of information technology.
- Recommendation: Competent Ascendancy dedicated to handling Cyber incidents is highly essential to cope with high-tech and mundane crime.
What Skills are Needed for Digital Forensics in Cyber Security
As you can imagine, not just anyone with a laptop and internet access can be a digital forensics professional. It takes an abundance of erudition and plenty of skills, including:
- a deep understanding of computers, technology across a broad spectrum, and cybersecurity principles and practices,
- a working erudition of computers, networks, and coding,
- in-depth investigative facilities,
- critical-cerebrating skills and analytical aptitude,
- the competency to efficaciously communicate and work with a wide range of people.
What makes the job so intriguing is that sometimes the evidence is facilely accessible, but other times it’s obnubilated deep within the computer or network. Often, it’s been expunged by the suspect. It’s the job of the professionals to utilize their erudition and skills to find the evidence, where ever it may be obnubilating.
And sometimes, it comes down to finding the data that’s been obnubilated with a single keystroke.
