Fields Associates

The police force of the UK still requires intensive training before it is able to grasp what digital forensics is all about. There is little understanding of the concept among the public as well. Given the extremely specialised nature of the industry, this hardly comes as a surprise. What does come across as much more strange is the fact that it was initiated by the police itself. For those who are interested in a bit of history, all this happened roughly twenty years ago. This was when the top brasses of law enforcers in the USA and Europe felt that the usual physical methods of gathering evidence was not summing up to the actual proofs available on the scene of the crime. Computers were playing an important role, and there had to be a way of forensic investigations that would collect the samples from digital devices for analysis, inference and presentation before the court when a case is being fought. The big private companies began to become aware of the scope of the field in the 1990s. Not that they were not around before that too, but the last decade of the twentieth century saw digital forensics firms springing up on a large scale all over Europe and the USA. It must be noted here that a similar pattern is being noticed in India and China now, as both of these countries begin to occupy important positions on the map of the digital world. The past three years, specially, has seen massive international mergers and acquisitions in both countries between home-grown agencies and global giants.

A Recent Merger

Joining hands to fight crime is an accepted way to grow in the digital forensics industry. Unlike computer manufacturing, data storage and backup and hardware development industries, this is not an entirely ‘machine-dependent’ field. Nor is it all ‘people-dependent’ like consultancy services. The technical knowhow is as important here as the individual analytical abilities of the people concerned, and the standard of the infrastructural support available plays a vital role in the overall growth of the company. We were discussing the importance of team building above. On June 19, 2007, Access Data Corporation of Utah, USA, declared a strategically important merger with a relatively smaller Australian company, Nuix Pty. Over the past eight years, Nuix had been developing its fact based investigation (fbi) software. This software accepts all file formats (even unprocessed ones) for digital forensics analysis and creates a graphical presentation of how the criminal actually progressed, with the option to export the report to any of the existing legal review tools. Nuix itself has collaborated with Australian government agencies and other law firms to create this software, which Access Data is now getting ready to add to their trademarked digital forensics toolkit. The fbi software is expected to cut investigation costs by 80% due to its speed and analytical comprehensibility.

Some Major Players

There are several big players in the forensics market, each with his or her specialisation. As has been hinted in the discussion above, this industry is knowledge-intensive rather than extensive. So the uniqueness of each firm is highlighted, and the more specialised its services, the better chances it will have in capturing clients.

• CCL Forensics Ltd: They serve both private and public sectors, including central police forces and home office bodies. It is based in the UK, is ISO certified, and has secure laboratories where they can deal with mobile devices too, such as cell phones, cameras, iPods, USB devices etc. CCL has a special Fraud Investigation Team headed by an ex-Detective Inspector and Senior Investigative Officer.
• Fraud Management Technologies: The name of this company clearly shows its specialisation. FMT Octopus is a software by them to manage online fraud for commercial organisations. Softkey, another software, is mobile phone-based.
• Entrust: Based at Berkshire, specialising in digital identification, specially in business mails. In 2006, they served 1,550 private and government agencies in 60 countries.
• Envisional: Their speciality is the pricey field of internet crime, specially digital piracy and brand abuse. Among other clients, they serve several Hollywood studios.  

Getting into the Business

The market looks good enough for those who want to join a highly specialisation-oriented industry. Apart from good funding, a strong software development wing, clean room facilities, and a hardware specialist team, one also needs detectives and mobile technology analysts to run a successful start-up. The future lies in well-planned mergers, and developing in the field of embedded technology. South East Asia is opening up, and digital copyright issues will soon be a great field for investigators.

Article: State of UK Forensics Industry

Created on: 2007-07-03 15:23:47