Building a Digital Forensic Laboratory: Establishing and Managing a Successful Facility. By A. Jones and C. Valli

Like so many things in our just-in-time world, this book was sent to me just as one of my colleagues was looking for a text for a course he was developing in computer forensics laboratory operations and management. The two lead authors—and contributing author P. Swinburne—bring decades of experience in military and law enforcement environments in Australia and the UK to these topics. The book provides valuable insights that are applicable to digital forensics lab managers in both the public and private sector. Like many aspects of digital forensics, there are several public sector guidelines from around the world for building computer forensics labs. That said, the largest growth in digital forensics staffing and activity is in the private sector, as information security incident response teams, representatives for the defense in criminal investigations, and e-discovery specialists in civil litigation employ a larger number of computer forensics specialists. This book is composed of 24 chapters divided into four sections covering a broad spectrum of topics. Section I is titled, " Creating a Digital Forensics Laboratory " and comprises the first 9 chapters of the book. These chapters cover a range of topics that set down the framework for determining why one is building such a capability in the first place; knowing why you need to build a lab will help immensely in how you design the facility, assemble the resources, and recruit the personnel. The first chapter offers a broad overview of the history and processes of digital forensics, setting the stage at 50,000 ft (or, in deference to the authors, 15,240 m) of what computer forensics is all about. The second chapter delves into the types of digital forensics investigations , including aspects of criminal and civil litigation , e-discovery, and data recovery. These two chapters are essential because they provide the base-line for everything else that follows. The next two chapters offer a checklist of issues to consider when establishing a lab and scoping out the requirements. These chapters discuss topics from the role of the lab within the organization/agency, staffing , and quality assurance to managing evidence, purchasing equipment, and prioritizing the cases. These chapters provide the framework for the rest of the book. The remaining chapters in this section drill deeper into some of the specific topics introduced earlier. Three chapters briefly describe the creation of a business plan for the lab, determining the location for the …