CBSC301 Final

1414 Words3 Pages

Introduction
Digital forensics is the function of unveiling and interpreting electronic data for use in a court of law. The objective of the process is to preserve any evidence in its most authentic form while performing a structured investigation by collecting, identifying and validating the digital information for the purpose of reconstructing past events (Janssen, 2010-2014).
There are many examiners in the Digital Forensic community who are not cognizant that professional codes of conduct and codes of ethical practices need to be an inherent part of every examination. This is especially important since it is a common practice to only examine the digital media for specific information requested by the investigator (Barbara, 2013).
Ultimately, the examiner is responsible for his or her results. Through education, training, and experience, he or she develops and enhances individual technical knowledge, skills, and abilities. This maturation process needs to involve adherence to an overriding code of professional conduct or a code of ethical practices. Doing so will give guidance and direction to the examiner when confronted with moral, professional, or ethical issues. Rightly or wrongly, morals, codes of professional conduct, conduct, and codes of ethical practices are intertwined. After reviewing the definitions of “code,” “conduct,” “ethics,” and “moral,” it is easy to comprehend why (see Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary). Generally, all codes consist of randomly agreed-upon rules that attempt to define appropriate behavior. This leads to many commonalities between the different codes. As one would expect, many professional forensic organizations have published codes for their members to follow (Barbara, 2013).

Why is Eth...

... middle of paper ...

...nt a conflict of interest, an ethical standard provides that specialist the guidance he or she needs to work through that situation. Further, standards assist digital forensic organizations. For instance, a certification standard helps certifying organizations demonstrate their value to courts, employers and practitioners interested in sitting for the certification. But none of these standards work unless they are developed jointly by practitioners within the industry. Digital forensics is a unique process - different from many other forensic practices. The natural inclination to treat it similarly to all other forensic sciences hurts practitioners. More importantly, the emerging thought that digital forensic specialists should be licensed without any regard to their ability to complete an examination without demonstrated proficiency is reckless (Specialists, 2014).

Open Document