 |
Professor Victor Fay-Wolfe (standing left) with computer forensics students (l-r) Craig Eminger, Nathan Burnell, Matt DeMatteo, Britnee Morgan and Kristen McCooey. |
Students training to become digital detectives
As digital information becomes more pervasive, its role as evidence in commercial, criminal or national cases is becoming more prominent. URI computer science students now have the opportunity to become digital detectives by becoming experts in the field of computer forensics, a field that helps obtain and analyze digital evidence from a wide variety of sources.
“Computer forensics is an emerging, rapidly expanding, and constantly changing field. Experts are rare and much sought after, ” said Victor Fay-Wolfe, a professor of computer science and statistics who, with colleagues James Kowalski, Lisa DiPippo, and Timothy Henry, was recently awarded a two-year, $300,000 National Science Foundation grant. The grant will help URI not only create a workforce of computer science graduates trained in computer forensics, but its education model can be replicated by other colleges and universities.
The grant will help the University develop a computer/network forensics curriculum for undergraduate computer science majors that integrates new courses and provides internships with partner organizations such as the Rhode Island State Police, Rhode Island Crime Lab, the URI Forensics Partnership, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and several local police departments and law firms.
The grant also creates a forensics track for computer science students enrolled in the mavster’s degree program. In addition, versions of the undergraduate and graduate courses will be offered to practitioners in the field enrolled in a continuing education certificate program.
“URI is unique,” says Fay-Wolfe. “Currently, there are very few computer forensics curriculum tracks at major universities. Those that do offer such tracks do not combine education, practicum, and research for students.”
Computer forensics experts are like pathologists who, drawing on an array of methods for discovering data in a computer system, can perform a computer autopsy. They can reveal what web sites have been visited, what searches performed, what files have been downloaded or deleted, e-mails received, sent or deleted, and passwords and logs. Attempts to conceal, destroy, or fabricate evidence, and deleted and encrypted files can also discovered.
Computer forensics experts work on the local, state, and federal levels of law enforcement. Police departments, state crime labs, the FBI, and the IRS employ these forensic sleuths who can earn entry-level salaries from $60,000 to $90,000.
Businesses also seek these kind of experts to tell them who attacked their networks, if employees are using the network for personal business, or if corporate espionage is occurring.
By Jan Wenzel
