About this Assignment
In this course, you have learned about network forensics, including legal aspects of digital criminal investigations. You will apply this knowledge in this project.
After completing this project, you will be able to:
- Describe the legal aspects of network forensic analysis
- Analyze ethical components of forensic analysis
- Discuss the chain of custody for evidence and apply it to network forensic analysis
Prompt
For this assignment, students will write a 2,500-3,000 word research paper that covers legal and ethical components of network forensic investigations. Consider the following scenario.
Through your investigations, you discovered illegal activity on your network, stemming from a couple of computers that had been taken over by cyber criminals. Ports were left open and exploited in order to steal company assets and attempt to sell them online. Your task is to address the legal requirements you have in order to ensure that evidence can be admitted in court. Additionally, you must address ethical issues surrounding the search and seizure of equipment and end-user data. Finally, the proper chain of custody must be followed: create a plan that maintains this important component of forensic investigation.
Your paper will consist of the following sections.
- Legal Aspects of Network Forensic Analysis – Discuss legal aspects of forensic analysis, tying your analysis to network forensic analysis and the case study. Analyze the legal steps required in the process of gathering evidence, search and seizure, and the interviewing of suspects.
- Ethical Components – Analyze the ethical components of network forensic analysis: what challenges could you face when trying to gather evidence of a crime? When does the prosecution of a crime override privacy or protection of personal data? How can these hurdles be overcome? Provide suggestions using relevant research.
- Chain of Custody – Explain the importance of a chain of custody for digital forensic evidence in network forensics. Be sure to explain the process of documenting, collecting and storing evidence from a crime scene (e.g., a laptop computer). Describe the consequences of not following a proper chain of custody, connecting to the case study.
Formatting & Sources
Please write your paper in the APA format. You may refer to the course material for supporting evidence, but you must also use five to seven outside sources and cite them using APA format. Please include a mix of both primary and secondary sources, with at least one source from a scholarly peer-reviewed journal. If you use any Study.com lessons as sources, please also cite them in APA (including the lesson title and instructor’s name).
- Primary sources are first-hand accounts such as interviews, advertisements, speeches, company documents, statements, and press releases published by the company in question.
- Secondary sources come from peer-reviewed scholarly journals, such as Journal of Forensic Sciences, Journal of Digital Forensics, Security, and Law and International Journal of Cybersecurity and Forensics. You may use sources like JSTOR, Google Scholar, to find articles from these journals. Secondary sources may also come from reputable websites with .gov, .edu, or .org in the domain. (Wikipedia is not a reputable source, though the sources listed in Wikipedia articles may be acceptable.)