Cyber Forensics Evolution and Its Goals

Evolution Of Cyber Forensics

The 1980s was the era when computer forensics came into existence after personal computers became a viable option for consumers. FBI had created a program in 1984 named as the ‘Magnetic Media Program’, in the current era, it is known as the Computer Analysis and Response Team (CART). Michael Anderson was known as the father of computer forensics because he had started developing measures in this field. He was a special agent in criminal investigation division. He had served the American government until the mid-1990s, after which he founded New Technologies, Inc., a leading computer forensics firm (H. Armstrong, 2004).

Until the late 1990s, what became known as digital forensics was commonly termed ‘computer forensics. At first, computer forensic technicians were law enforcement officers who were also computer hobbyists. In the USA in 1984, work began in the FBI Computer Analysis and Response Team (CART). One year later, in the UK, the Metropolitan Police set up a computer crime unit under John Austen within what was then called the Fraud Squad.

A major change took place at the beginning of the 1990s. Investigators and technical support operatives within the UK law enforcement agencies, along with outside specialists, realized that digital forensics (as with other fields) required standard techniques, protocols, and procedures. Apart from informal guidelines, these standard tools and techniques did not exist and urgently needed to be developed. A series of conferences, initially convened by the Serious Fraud Office and the Inland Revenue, took place at the Police Staff College at Bramshill in 1994 and 1995, during which the modern British digital forensic methodology was established.

In the UK in 1998 the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) produced the first version of its Good Practice Guide for Digital Evidence (Association of Chief Police Officers, 2012). The ACPO guidelines detail the main principles applicable to all digital forensics for law enforcement in the UK.

As the science of digital forensics had matured, these guidelines and best practices have slowly evolved into standards and the field has come under the auspices of the Forensic Science Regulator in the UK.

Formation of Cyber Forensic Investigation Agencies

In the year 1988, a meeting was organized in Oregon that led to the formation of the International Association of Computer Investigative Specialists (IACIS). Soon after that, the first module was designed to teach SCERS (Seized Computer Evidence Recovery Specialists) (M. Meyers, M. Rogers, 2006).

Computer Forensic Timeline is illustrated in Fig.1 and it represents the evolution of the digital forensics domain as such.

Figure 1.

Computer Forensics Timeline