Program in Digital Forensics (PDF)

University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL

Investigators

Abstract

Digital forensics is a rapidly growing branch of forensics that focuses on the recovery and investigation of data found in digital devices. It is now a major part of many criminal and civil investigations and its tools are used by local, state, and Federal law enforcement agencies with increasing frequency. Digital forensics education programs are needed to increase the size of the technical workforce to meet the needs of the nation. The project focuses on the development of undergraduate programs modeled on the standardized curricula proposed by NSA, DHS, Security Centers for Academic Excellence, ACM, and IEEE. It contributes to the creation of resources and educational materials for use in academic programs, distance learning, multi-disciplinary, and multi-institutional programs that meet the evolving standards. The field of digital forensics depends on many disciplines and skills including evidence collection, preservation, and presentation as well as forensic preparation. The Information Trust Institute education team involves cross-field collaboration and includes the Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Business and Accounting, Criminal Justice, Law, and Educational Assessment experts that are needed for this type of curriculum development. In addition, the Institute has research findings in many digital forensics application areas (supercomputing, clouds, cyber infrastructures for transportation, power, health, and mobile computing) that are being integrated into this comprehensive multi-disciplinary educational program.