MSc in Digital Fore...
 
Notifications
Clear all

MSc in Digital Forensics (leading uni's)???

20 Posts
15 Users
0 Likes
378.4 K Views
CopyRight
(@copyright)
Posts: 184
Estimable Member
Topic starter
 

I was just wondering if anyone could share a list of leading universities in the US and the UK that provide MSc in Digital Forensics.

 
Posted : 23/04/2014 6:53 pm
jhup
 jhup
(@jhup)
Posts: 1442
Noble Member
 

It is still rare to find a proper digital forensics undergraduate, let alone graduate degree in the US.

Try the following, and narrow by the "programs".
http//nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/

 
Posted : 23/04/2014 9:09 pm
(@dra52091)
Posts: 5
Active Member
 

Champlain College in Vermont has an online MSc In Digital Forensic Science. It is an accelerated program with 8 week semesters. I have taken a few courses already and learned a lot. All of the students in your classes will be professionals in the field. This was great for someone new to the field as I learned a great deal from the more experienced students. More info can be found here if you are interested Champlain

Dan

 
Posted : 24/04/2014 11:36 pm
(@kastriot)
Posts: 5
Active Member
 

UCD, Dublin,

http//www.csi.ucd.ie/content/msc-forensic-computing-and-cybercrime-investigation

 
Posted : 25/04/2014 12:32 am
jhup
 jhup
(@jhup)
Posts: 1442
Noble Member
 

Can you share what classes, as I have a friend who is just finishing his final with them, and it was disappointing.

Champlain College in Vermont has an online MSc In Digital Forensic Science. It is an accelerated program with 8 week semesters. I have taken a few courses already and learned a lot. All of the students in your classes will be professionals in the field. This was great for someone new to the field as I learned a great deal from the more experienced students. More info can be found here if you are interested Champlain

Dan

 
Posted : 25/04/2014 3:00 am
(@nikatsam)
Posts: 1
New Member
 

Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland offers an MsC with great modules where you can learn a lot about security and forensics.

Advanced Security and Digital Forensics MsC

 
Posted : 25/04/2014 4:54 am
(@bithead)
Posts: 1206
Noble Member
 

Can you share what classes, as I have a friend who is just finishing his final with them, and it was disappointing.

I would agree with your friend. For as highly as Champlain touts itself the online program is glorified self-study of dated material. If you have any experience in the field consider yourself lucky to get anything more than a piece of paper.

 
Posted : 25/04/2014 5:28 am
(@dra52091)
Posts: 5
Active Member
 

So far I've taken
1.Practice of Digital Investigations
2.Operating System Analysis
3.Scripting for Digital Forensics

I will admit that the first two courses consisted of a lot of tedious reading, and writing papers with minimal hands-on exercises. That comes with the territory of online learning. However, it was still beneficial to me as I have minimal experience and I was able to take away a lot from the more experienced students in the class.

Scripting for Digital Forensics was my favorite class by far. This class focused on Python scripting. We would have weekly quizzes that required writing python scripts, and the teacher would also hold weekly online sessions to answer any questions. There were also two projects where we had to create scripts to complete an objective that was related to forensics. While 8 weeks isn't exactly enough time to master a programming language, I think it was covered very well.

Hopefully this helped?

Dan

 
Posted : 28/04/2014 7:26 pm
(@nirnias)
Posts: 15
Active Member
 

I can personally vouch for and recommend University College Dublin (UCD) here in Ireland. I am currently doing the Masters in Digital Investigation & Computing Forensics myself and i am REALLY enjoying it. The course is well laid out and presented.

In particular 2 projects which i really enjoyed was working on a kidnapping case that they got a writer to come up with and they set up 3 disk images. You use provided software such as X-Ways, Net Analysis etc. to investigative the 3 images and figure out what happened and the story behind the kidnapping.

The second was a live pen testing project where we had to attack an environment set up for us and discover its vulnerabilities, exploit them and then document how best to fix the vulnerability. We had about 2 months to complete each project and i loved doing both of them.

Currently have a class of about 50-60 people, 35 or so of those people are all doing distance learning from all over the world. All classes are streamed live whenever the class is scheduled for and each classes is recorded and uploaded to moodle. So if you do not manage to catch the live stream, you can watch the recording at your own convenience.

Through the year i think there are only 2 mandatory days of attendance, 1 for exams and 1 for a workshop. The rest all assignments can be submitted online via moodle.

The course modules for this year consist of

Digital Investigation & the Law (Written assignments + take home exam)

Corporate Investigations (Practical assignments of HEX and tracking down an individual and investigating fraud happening in a company.)

Information Security (Written assignments + Practical penetration testing project

Computer Forensic Foundations (Practical HEX based assignments + solving kidnapping case + exam)

Investigative Techniques (All practical workshops, interview techniques, scene searches, how to seize digital evidence etc.)

Application Forensics (Assembly/Dis-assembly assignment + Wigmorian chart assignment + Essay based on papers from chosen topic + exam)

Research Project (Minor Dissertation) Topic of your choice in the field.

Regards
Stephen

 
Posted : 15/05/2014 8:13 pm
(@joe_t)
Posts: 14
Active Member
 

I second Nirnias (Hi Stephen).

Hi,

I just wanted to add my two cents.

I'm currently completing my MSc in Digital Investigation & Forensic Computing at UCD in Dublin, Ireland by distance education (you can log in and participate live in all classes just like being there and you only need to be physically present for a few days for exams) and I highly recommend it.

I'm already a digital forensics professional with over five years professional experience and was looking for something I could do alongside my job just to obtain a more formal qualification and am very happy with this programme - you learn a good deal of everything Common Law and European Civil Law, eDiscovery, Malware Analysis, Investigative Techniques, Corporate Investigations, Computer Forensics, Web Application Security Testing, … and the staff are all active computer forensics professionals who really know what they are doing and, as such, everything is very practical and "real world".

It's great, inexpensive, and you can participate from basically anywhere in the world (I've even attended classes live during a trainride home using my iPhone and taking notes on paper). You should seriously check it out.

Cheers,

Joe

http//forensicfocus.com/Forums/viewtopic/p=6572433/#6572433

 
Posted : 16/05/2014 1:58 pm
Page 1 / 2
Share: