The DHS has been taking an interest in InfraGard, and said that they are going to restructure the membership. Although, the restructuring has taken 2 years, and they still aren't finished. Does everything in government take 10 times as long as it should?
The restructuring is supposed to include new background checks on the members and a survey of everyone's specialties. Maybe that gives us some hope of being utilized more in the future? We are supposed to attend the next quarterly meeting to receive our new membership cards. I guess I'd better attend then.
Our Indiana chapters have merged into one and includes over a hundred members.
I have had a few engagements where I have worked closely with the FBI and other LE agencies. My impressions and experiences are mixed. While I found the agents with whom I worked to be dedicated and passionate about their work, the information flow tended to be in one direction, i.e., as part of an intrusion investigation we provided them with highly detailed information which could have been used in a criminal investigation (but which was beyond the reach of civil subpoena), but got very little in return.
In addition, their focus seemed to be on the "usual suspects" (e.g. the former Russian Business Network), and, surprisingly, not on the domestic angle (our evidence strongly suggested that the origin of the intrusion was the US and that traffic was simply being proxied through compromised systems overseas).
Most concerningly, their mandate with respect to white collar crime seemed to be to focus on those situations where damages exceeded tens of thousands of dollars. This creates a kind of perverse incentive whereby business who have a rapid response to minimize the damages are "penalized" for being good.
Again, this is not to criticize any of the agents with whom I have had the pleasure to work. The problem seems to be with their management.
Further, and disappointingly, the new administration seems to have done nothing to change this in spite of all the press suggesting a new kind of cooperation between the public and private sectors.
I wanted to post how I thought Infragard was a good organization, but I guess, like everything, it depends on who is running the show. The chapter in Tampa is very active and I was even able to get a Special Agent to come and speak with me at a presentation I gave recently.
Thank you all for their input. Any thoughts on American College of Forensic Examiners ACFEI and their CFC certification? Seems like they cover more on legal proceeding than computer forensic itself.
Thank you all for their input. Any thoughts on American College of Forensic Examiners ACFEI and their CFC certification? Seems like they cover more on legal proceeding than computer forensic itself.
If you think you might be doing expert witness work and/or testifying I really recommend the cert and program. It all depends on your strengths and weaknesses in other areas. I felt my technical knowledge was very strong but I wanted more depth to the FRCP and process for report writing, EBTs/Depos and trial. Dr. Marc Rabinoff who does the instruction for the online module gives very good anecdotal stories and information about what to watch out for and I felt it was very helpful before going into the litigation support side of this work.