Computer Forensics Careers...

Alty

Alty

Alty

Associate
Joined
23 Oct 2004
Posts
1,884
Location
East Riding of Yorkshire
Am finishing off my Masters in Computer Forensics and Information Security (successfully passed all the finals and now just have the dissertation to finish) and was wondering if there were any other people in the same area of expertise as me.

I am now currently looking for work and is it me or is it a pretty darned hard career to crack into? I have only found around 20 jobs nationwide so far advertising (of which probably 4 or 5 have been suitable for junior positions!)

I had an interview with South Yorks Police last week and alas came 2nd outta 49 applicants :( But I spose that werent bad for a 1st interview. This is supposed to be an up and coming area of employment within IT but where are these jobs hiding - any ideas??

Computer Forensics is a thoroughly interesting area to get into, I have loved the Masters and can't wait to put all the theory I have learnt and put it into practice :D

I have tried the normal avenues such as:

- specialist websites/forums
- job websites
- papers (local and national)

I was just wondering if there were any other Computer Forensic Analysts/Investigators/Graduates on these forums and what they have done to look for work in this specialist field.
 
Would you consider working for the police?

Edit: Oops, noticed you didnt quite make that...keep trying, is all I can suggest, I'm not an expert but it was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the title.
 
The only problem with working for the police is that each of the specialist crime units that involve computer crime are so small. South Yorks Police Computer Forensic Unit for example only consist of 4 people of which only 1 is an actual computer forensic analyst and has been in the job since last november the other 3 are manager, admin and a new post created for which I applied.
 
What did the security part of the course involve?

The problem is IT staff often have to be talented and qualified in a range of areas, not just security\forensics, otherwise you'll find your job opportunities are going to be limited...
 
I work in Computer Forensics, but that's not the only work I do, and I doubt you'll have much luck finding a job that is purely focused on forensics they are out there, just rarer IME than a widely focused security role with forensics being a part of that.
Apart from the Police you'll probably find customs and excise (are they HMRC now?) also want similarly trained people.

In the group I'm in forensics is only a part of what we do; we also do incident management, are expected to be experts on our corporate policies and guidelines (as well as appropriate international security standards) to provide security advice to other teams/projects, we also do IT risk management and are involved with the creation and maintenance of internal security policies.

Obviously we don't do all this at once, and share some of that work with other teams, but the forensics is purely ours, but it's a variable workload which is why you might have trouble finding a job advertised purely as forensic work.

btw; feel free to mail me if you want to ask anymore about what I do, mail in trust.
 
The four modules in the Masters consisted of:

- Internet Law (was ok, especially useful re: data protection act, copyright, etc)
- Seizure and Examination of Computer Systems (This was the best module actually getting your hands dirty looking for hidden files using Encase etc)
- Strategic Technology Management (Dull as dishwater talking about preparing security plans and policies etc)
- Network and Distributed Systems Security (Cyptography (which I found to be a complete headache) and all that jazz)

It was an interesting couple of years and on the whole I enjoyed it altho some of the stuff I can't for the life of me think how I will implement it into my working career.

**EDIT** please note that there was a hell of a lot more in the modules than what I have put lol!

Bam0 - I shall indeed be chucking you an email at some point for some pointers :) Didn't Customs & Excise become part of SOCA along with the NHTCU?
 
Staffordshire Police have had forensic posts listed a couple of times,

..would love to do something like that, but sadly don't have a big enough brain.


.
 
Also have a look at the large accounting firms who all have computer forensic department. Also security companies like Control Risk Groups have departments. You might also want to get up on SafeBack which is a favoured tool in this area.

From experience it is all about knowing the right people and getting lucky. SOCA would be a good start as they would give you lots of training.
 
My brother is just finishing a year at PITO in London doing this kind of stuff I think, electronic fingerprints and stuff. He is studying computer programming I think. :)

Not a helpful post really but he does say it is interesting (and also that a lot of the employees arn't actually 'very' good at what they are doing).
 
Alty said:
The four modules in the Masters consisted of:

- Internet Law (was ok, especially useful re: data protection act, copyright, etc)
- Seizure and Examination of Computer Systems (This was the best module actually getting your hands dirty looking for hidden files using Encase etc)
- Strategic Technology Management (Dull as dishwater talking about preparing security plans and policies etc)
- Network and Distributed Systems Security (Cyptography (which I found to be a complete headache) and all that jazz)

It was an interesting couple of years and on the whole I enjoyed it altho some of the stuff I can't for the life of me think how I will implement it into my working career.

**EDIT** please note that there was a hell of a lot more in the modules than what I have put lol!

Bam0 - I shall indeed be chucking you an email at some point for some pointers :) Didn't Customs & Excise become part of SOCA along with the NHTCU?
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I think you are going to be hard put to find the job you are clearly wanting straight out of Uni with zero experiance.

I'd be interested in knowing exactly what the above courses covered? (without trying to sound like a ****) I am having trouble seeing how a Uni course could prepare for the real world when it comes to "Computer Forensics".

Working bang slap in the industry where its possibly going to be where you are looking (Unix Systems Administrator at a major london ISP) any forensics of at least the ISP / Banking industry would require many years of Unix knowledge and experiance. It would require the full knowledge of how the many different *nix operating systems work, from the different file systems, storage methods, right through to looking/manipulating kernel source code, understanding C, perl etc... This is without even considering the networking side and Cisco qualifications that would be needed.

Either way my advice would be to work in several fields around the forensics area that will eventually get the job you are gunning for. Couple years experiance as sysadmin would be your best bet as it involves a lot of security related work, from the point of view of building secure systems as well as picking intrusions, removing threats and recognising breaches.
 
I suspect that part of the problem is that CFS departments aren't looking for qualifications in CFS, they are looking for standard CS qualifications and experience. Every department does the job differnetly, and every one want you to do it their way, not however you were taught in Uni. They want you to have the in-depth general computer background, which is much harder to teach.

The situation is similar to that of normal forensic science, where hundreds of people are doing degrees in forensic science, which are worthless: the companies which do the work want general degrees like chemistry and biology, as they can easily teach the specialist stuff.

FWIW West Yorkshire have their own CFS team, based in Wakefield HQ. Not recruiting currently AFAIK, but it might be worth a try if you live in that part of the world.


M
 
Zap said:
MI5?
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I wouldn't touch them with a bargepole. Knew someone who worked for them and without going into details warned me off even thinking about them.
 
whitecrook said:
Just a thought, but have you thought about going independant?

Set up your own business. Data recovery, forensic analysis, etc etc.
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The irony is my father has offered me a building which he owns in the docklands to set up a custom forensics lab if I wanted - the only problem is that there really would be no point since I have to make a name for myself before going solo. I just hope my dad is as generous in a few years time lol!
 
vonhelmet said:
BDO Stoy Hayward are looking for Computer Forensics people down in London. Don't know if you've seen them.
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Thanks for the heads up - deffo gonna investigate this! Should it lead anywhere you are gonna be in for a treat ;)
 
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