| Electronic devices have become an integral part of everyday life in today's world. As a result, law enforcement (LE) officers handle electronic devices on a daily basis, sometimes as personal property and at other times as important pieces of evidence in a case. Therefore, many police departments have incorporated this critical training into their academy classes. For those officers and investigators that have graduated from the academy prior to the addition of basic computer forensics training, there are many sources of computer forensics training available for all levels (city, county, state, tribal, and federal). There are free and paid courses online and in conventional classroom environments. This training is invaluable to officers dealing with electronic evidence on how to package and protect the evidence to prevent corruption and/or loss of data. However, there are emerging technologies that, while they have been around, are becoming more prevalent in the criminal world. At the same time, these technologies allow criminals to easily hide valuable digital evidence from investigators and make examinations of electronic evidence more difficult and time consuming. This paper investigates these emerging technologies and how to protect the evidence stored within from corruption and loss. Keywords: Cybersecurity, Professor Cynthia Gonnella, virtual machine, VM, cloud, virtual private network, VPN, risk assessment. |
