| The Digital Age has formed a society which relies upon digital devices to complete everyday activities, and consequently, digital devices have become a way to facilitate both traditional and cybercrime. As technology continues to evolve, state and local law enforcement agencies face increasing pressures to improve both their cybercrime and digital forensics investigation efforts. This body of research examines the rapid growths in digital devices and Internet usage and lack of resources at the state and local level to investigate cybercrimes and crimes with a digital component. This research analyzes rises in digital forensics case backlogs at the state and local level and explores impacts of digital forensics case backlogs on society and law enforcement. This study further assesses current digital forensics efforts and potential cost effective solutions state and local law enforcement agencies can employ to decrease backlogs. The need for state and local law enforcement to enhance their cybercrime and digital forensics investigation efforts is crucial for maintaining the security of society. This study evaluates the implementation of open source tools, automated tools, triage, and civilian digital forensics examiners to potentially reduce digital forensics case backlogs at the state and local level. The culmination of this study presents measures to continue this research. An important finding was that many factors contribute to the growth of digital forensics case backlogs and there is no seamless solution to address such challenges through technology's ever evolving landscape.;Keywords: Cybersecurity, Professor Cynthia R. Gonnella, United States, criminal justice system, Regional Computer Forensics Laboratories (RCFLs), delays, storage, training. |
