Hi.

I am hoping to begin training for certification in encased within the next few months.

I have researched Guidance software and their course offerings.

The reason for my post is that I am trying to get an idea of the normal background knowledge that is required before beginning the training courses for digitAL forensic. Or are these courses geared toward those who are starting out with no background in computers at all?

I would appreciate any advice or help.

Thanks

Josh  

Forensics I
This will ease you in. Once you have basic computer knowledge, you will be fine.

Forensics II
This is (obviously) a follow on from this, little bit more details into everything, starts to get hardcore towards the end of the week, its all hex and binary!

From these two, you can go on to much more complex stuff. I've done the NTFS and Advanced Internet. NTFS will blow your mind... its a long week! Internet is great, really interesting.

Not done advanced forensics, going back for that in a couple of months!

Good luck. Say hi to Bill  

Sorry, don't say hi to Bill... He's only in the UK... just seen where you from lol  

In my classes there were people with no prior experience (including a few who had no in-depth IT experience), as well as people who had 15+ years in forensics but were taking the courses for Daubert purposes.

Remember that while the course does emphasize some fundamentals of forensic investigation, it is really a course to teach you how to use a product. From that perspective, you would have an advantage to have an IT/forensics background, but it isn't truly a requirement.  

Josh, hi My name is Josh also. I was in the same situation as you. I was going to take the EnCe Passport option and get like 5 courses done but I steped back and thought about what I really need.

I am about to graduate with my BA in Computer Forensics & Network Security. I have an internship and want to be able to be a bigger help to them so I am paying for these courses out of my own pocket.

After doing more research I found that the SANS 408 & 508 are more in line with the fundementals that I need.

Although I am not that experienced as most on this site my suggestion is if you are like me, skip the EnCe courses for now and take the SANS courses. Then move to them.  

Josh, hi My name is Josh also. I was in the same situation as you. I was going to take the EnCe Passport option and get like 5 courses done but I steped back and thought about what I really need.

I am about to graduate with my BA in Computer Forensics & Network Security. I have an internship and want to be able to be a bigger help to them so I am paying for these courses out of my own pocket.

After doing more research I found that the SANS 408 & 508 are more in line with the fundementals that I need.

Although I am not that experienced as most on this site my suggestion is if you are like me, skip the EnCe courses for now and take the SANS courses. Then move to them.