Why The Battle Against Digital Crime Needs To Continue

It's hard to imagine going to work and not checking emails

, or going for a night out in town and not having a mobile phone to call friends. This is the impact technology is having on all of our lives, computers, phones and PDA's are part of our everyday lives now. As they have crept in to our daily routines, they have become a target for digital criminals, to both gather data from and to use as tools to carry out crime.

As we all use technology and there are companies everywhere working on the next big thing, the challenge for computer forensics investigators is to keep up and to try and stay ahead of the game. Emails, text messages and all matter of data are being sent to and from devices twenty four hours a day and there are unscrupulous people looking to acquire it and use it for criminal purpose. It has been this, coupled with the use of such technology by criminals that has seen the prominence of computer forensics.

The eighties was a boom time for big hair, electronic tunes and of course computing. The eighties saw computers entering the home, businesses and of course the advent of the Internet as a platform for information sharing and communication. In response to the computing boom, the FBI created a specialist team, the Computer Analysis and Response Team - a team that has become even more important and prominent ever since.

In the late nineties and early part of the twenty first century it fast became apparent that with the Internet starting to take off, and as the amount of cases being investigated by specialist forensic teams started to increase that the computer was soon to become a vital part of crime investigations in the future. Nowadays, the smartphone, PDA's and other mobile devices have opened up the potential number of options for the aspiring digital criminal which means there is no time for slowing down and there needs to be a constant look towards what is coming next and what emerging technologies there are.

As a result, digital evidence is used in a wide variety of cases and can often involve multiple disciplines, combined together to create compelling cases to prove the innocence or guilt of those accused. From business cases that can involve the mapping of networks and hard drives to personal cases that can involve the analysis of mobile devices in conjunction with the enhancement of visual data such as CCTV. It is now an agile profession and one in which most cases will more often than not turn out to be unique and require the use of various techniques.

It is important for all of us to be careful with our data no matter what the device but it is reassuring to know that there are services out there for catching those who choose to misuse technology for unlawful activity. Computer forensics is continuing to evolve and this has to be good news for all of us who use the internet, computers or mobile devices as well as those who fall victim to non-digital crime and have cases that can use digital evidence.

by: Chris Bale

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