Establishing a criminal justice cyber lab to develop and enhance professional and educational opportunities

Abstract

Law enforcement agencies face increasing backlogs in their digital evidence processing. Most agencies utilize federal or private companies to process this evidence, however, recently, universities have begun to establish their own cyber forensics labs to aid law enforcement in reducing the time it takes for them to obtain digital evidence. Specifically, examiners in these labs use digital investigation and analysis techniques to determine what could be legally permissible evidence on devices ranging from computers to cell phones to cameras. This paper is the first to provide a general overview of one university's experience in building a cyber‐forensics lab from the ground up for the purpose of providing services to community partners as well as educational and training opportunities. We utilize data obtained from 59 Texas law enforcement agencies to explore the needs and abilities of law enforcement in processing digital evidence as a supporting argument for the development of a university cyber‐lab.