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Digital Forensics: A Billion-Dollar Market in the Making?

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Jamie
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I've noticed one or two articles recently along the lines of this one from Inc. where one of the points made is that digital forensics is at a kind of tipping point with rapid expansion on the horizon. Interested to hear thoughts on this - is it just hype/wishful thinking, or is there more to it than that?

 
Posted : 27/05/2014 8:06 pm
jaclaz
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I've noticed one or two articles recently along the lines of this one from Inc. where one of the points made is that digital forensics is at a kind of tipping point with rapid expansion on the horizon. Interested to hear thoughts on this - is it just hype/wishful thinking, or is there more to it than that?

Personally I made a vow to stop reading *anything* containing any among "new age", "the Internet of Things" and "smart" attributed to any device, whichever comes first. wink

And here we have all three in two sentences 😯

Why is the digital forensics industry poised to be the next billion-dollar market?

The industry is going to expand dramatically over the next few years because we are entering a new age of computing shaped by the Internet of Things. In the coming years, everything will be smart, including our cars, thermostats, and refrigerators.

More seriously, it seems to me like a visionary view of a future lifestyle that may (or may not) happen.

I am sure that cloud storage represents a new field that needs and will need to be addressed, but this is a bit too much as I see it

Now, law enforcement can arrest a suspect, but on the person's laptop, phone, tablet, there's nothing. All the data and files are stored in the cloud. The cloud is like a black box; you don't get to see what's inside, and you aren't told where data is stored or who has acess to it.

Please note the typo in "acess" that even this board software spelling corrector catches….
… possibly the wordprocessor Inc. uses is not "smart" enough. wink

jaclaz

 
Posted : 27/05/2014 10:16 pm
jhup
 jhup
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Electronic discovery was a billion dollar market. Now it is waning and much of the rush a few years ago into the industry needs an outlet. What is to do the push-button eD company with a squadron of "experts"? Got it! Fire half of them, and the rest are now forensic experts!

I guess that could be a tipping point.

I am quite sure that precipices in an industry are created by disruptive ideas. Something that throws a wrench into the status quo… I have yet to see that wrench.

 
Posted : 28/05/2014 4:27 am
(@infoseccow)
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It is more likely we will see corporations start using automated forensics built into centrally manged DLP software so that a security engineer can push a button to generate a report with evidence. Of course it is also likely that the DLP software will get consumed into the log management software so that eventually you have one integrated console for all of the parts we now do separately. In short all of the segmented parts of the whole security equation will get brought together as the security field matures. AKA for the corporate user forensics mostly goes away. Of course if the courts/law enforcement blow up into huge users of forensic software (think 100's of times greater than now) then we might have a tipping point for forensics but I believe the Inc. author and his professors premise does not make sense in light of industry trends.

 
Posted : 29/05/2014 4:23 am
MDCR
 MDCR
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automated forensics

Good luck with that.

 
Posted : 29/05/2014 3:11 pm
jhup
 jhup
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If that happens my thesis writing will become way easier.

I am thinking . . . 42.ZIP anyone? twisted

Of course, being cautious isn't a bad idea. After all, the BWMG* thought they had the market cornered… 😯

*Buggy Whip Makers Guild
 
Posted : 29/05/2014 5:44 pm
jaclaz
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I am thinking . . . 42.ZIP anyone? twisted

I prefer Droste wink
http//www.steike.com/code/useless/zip-file-quine/

jaclaz

 
Posted : 29/05/2014 6:02 pm
(@infoseccow)
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automated forensics

Good luck with that.

Not at all. It would be quite easy to automatically grab an image of the drive remotely, make copies of the offending data for a report, pull the logs that show the traffic over the network, and then wrap it all into a nice neat bundle for any identified policy violation with no human intervention. For most corporate users that is about all they need. Walk in for your shift and send the report to HR/Legal for action. If legal wanted something further you bring in a forensic technician to do the work by hand. As we move everyone’s data to the cloud (and get rid of local hard drives) it becomes even easier because you already have all the data and will have been taking regular snapshots of it. In the corporate world there will always be a need for a small number of forensic technicians to do things the automated tools cannot, but as the security consoles mature and get more features the fun we are having now will diminish.

 
Posted : 29/05/2014 6:44 pm
jhup
 jhup
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There is slightly higher bar, in mind at least for criminal and even civil case forensics, than in-house HR & Legal.

In corporate world, such findings are rarely opposed - not so in court.

 
Posted : 29/05/2014 9:20 pm
(@infoseccow)
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Exactly. Which is why there will always be a need for forensic technicians. But for the rapid expansion discussed in the article, pointed out by the OP, to take place someone will have to finance that expansion. The LEO world is not known for having huge budgets attached to their forensics units… Grin.

 
Posted : 29/05/2014 10:01 pm
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