Education & Career Trends: April 21, 2024
Curated by the Knowledge Team of ICS Career GPS
Content Credit:
- Article by Dr. Mohit Soni, published on indiatoday.in. Original article link.
Cyber forensics refers to the specialisation of digital forensics in forensic sciences. As an up-and-coming field, cyber forensics today serves as a major source of employment and a lucrative career option. The rise of science in cyber monitoring has significantly uplifted the status of forensic science not just in India but across the world. A crime scene may be classified as digital forensics if the evidence obtained from the crime scene is electronic and can be derived from digital machines.
Forensic science is the application of scientific principles in criminal investigations.
It can be further divided into six different specialisations based on the type of evidence found on the crime scene. These are:
- Forensic Life Sciences
- Forensic Chemistry and Toxicology
- Forensic Physics
- Forensic Ballistics
- Questioned Document Examination
- Digital Forensics
Courses in Cyber Forensics:
To boost scientific opinion on the crime scene, a centrally-funded National Forensic Science University with campuses in New Delhi and Gandhinagar (Gujarat) has been inaugurated.
Several universities are found to be running an MSc in Forensic Science, offering digital forensics as a specialisation area. Depending on the varied backgrounds of bachelor’s degrees, a master’s in digital forensics can accommodate several students.
It further opens an array of career options and dedicated industries that require experts in different capacities to cater to the requirements posed by various pieces of evidence found on the crime scenes. Forensic science finds maximum utility in the government sector.
An Overview of Cyber Forensics:
Digital Forensics is the only specialisation in Forensic Science to have breached the industry and create a niche for itself.
The aforementioned electronic evidence derived from digital machines can be further sub-categorised into different classes. Understanding these classes will enable further discussion on the avenues that open up for students who opt for this field.
For example, if the digital machinery found on a crime scene includes a computer(desktop or laptop) and is in a stand-alone state, the class is termed computer forensics. This class deals with deleted data recovery and offers the highest number of entry-level positions for students trained under this discipline. If the computer is networked, it is referred to as network forensics.
If the evidence is a mobile device, the class is termed mobile forensics which entails tool-based data recovery protocols.
Career Opportunities in Cyber Forensics
- Several private investigation firms hire freshers to perform data recovery on ceased machines by government agencies, such as Income tax and excise
- This enables them to cater to the requirements of sanctioned government contracts outsourced to them.
- Specialisation in network forensics allows students to foray into security and opens the widely acclaimed and viable field of network/cyber security and incident response.
- Software developers can find jobs in industries performing source-code forensics.
- Electronic engineers can satisfy the requirements of signal processing, desired by a multimedia forensic expert, this involves working on audio/video evidence.
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Have you checked out yesterday’s blog yet?
Career In Data Science: Here Are Some Job Roles You Could Choose From
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in the article mentioned above are those of the author(s). They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of ICS Career GPS or its staff.)
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