Cyberforensics

Cyber forensics is used to solve crimes that would be impossible to solve otherwise. One example is a robbery in Chicago. A fast food worker was robbed at knifepoint. The responding officer got the surveillance video from the restaurant and took it to the Chicago Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory to be enhanced. The picture was made clearer and then compared to the Illinois Drivers License database. A match was found and the suspect was apprehended.

There were many cases solved with the assistance of a Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory, or RCFL, in 2007 and ever since. What are RCFL’s you might ask? RCFL’s are networks of “digital forensics labs sponsored by the FBI and staffed by local, state, and federal law enforcement personnel” (FBI.gov, 2008). They have labs in 17 states, which are available free to 4,750 law enforcement agencies.

RCFLs are used majorly in cyber crime cases, but they can contribute to investigations of terrorism, espionage, civil rights, public corruption, white-collar crime, violent crime, and organized crime. In today’s world, it is hard to find a criminal who doesn’t use a computer. And when they do, the RCFL is used to get the information that can be used as evidence.