Computer Security Forensics

Computer crimes are on the rise as more people rely on computers for their every day life and businesses and more criminals are taking to the internet for many different types of cyber crimes.

Computer security forensics is a practice designed to keep up with this evolution of crimes and is a science that has been around for a long time. The industry is changing each day and as new internet crimes are created by skillful hackers, digital forensics experts have to keep up and find new ways to access and analyze data.

Computers and other media devices that store and send data are the key witnesses in many cyber crimes. If someone is doing questionable activity on a computer, even though they delete the materials, it is still recoverable by the computer forensics process. Data can be accessed to determine what it is, where it came from and who sent or received it. Pretty much any relevant information needed can be found when accessing a computer.

Some of the major crimes happening these days, due to the economy being in the condition it is, are corporate theft. Employees are being caught trading information to competitors for their personal benefit, such as a new job or for profit. Reports have shown that many employees are also using confidential company information to run competing businesses on the side.

Many companies have hired an in-house computer security forensics team to monitor the daily activity of suspicious employees. They track each email, its contents and destination to find out what kind of information is being passed along and where it’s going. The employee is most always unaware that a team like this even exists and feels that if they delete all of the information it will not be able to be tracked. The fact of the matter is that even if an employee quits or is fired their computer can still be accessed and information retrieved from the computer.

In these cases, if there is a computer in the office that may contain sensitive information, it is important to not tamper with the computer in any way. Even turning the computer off or on can delete valuable information that is pertinent to the case. It’s best to leave the computer alone and place it in a secure area where access is completely denied. You wouldn’t pick up a knife at a crime scene, would you? This is similar, as any tiny action can cause evidence to be destroyed.

Computer security forensics is a large factor in many criminal cases. By being able to pin point the root of the crime and all information within, it is possible to prosecute individuals on this information, alone. As computer forensics experts become more knowledgeable and take on new types of computer crimes they will only become even savvier as to what type of information will be accessible in the future.