Marshall University’s Digital Forensics program will team up with the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C) to offer a Cyber Investigations Bootcamp, intended to train law enforcement officers from this region and beyond the latest techniques on everything from cell phone investigations to vehicle forensics to crime scenes. It will take place from Monday, July 31, to Friday, Aug. 4, in the Weisberg Applied Engineering Complex.
This is a first-time joint training event between Marshall and NW3C, a nationwide nonprofit that supports trainings on the investigation, prevention and prosecution of high-tech crime. Its trainings focus on digital forensics, intelligence analysis, and cyber and financial crime.
“We’re very excited to partner with the NW3C,” said John Sammons, associate professor of Digital Forensics/Information Assurance and chair of Marshall’s Department of Forensic Science. “This type of training is critical for law enforcement in this day and age. The amount and type of electronic evidence in even an ‘average’ case can be staggering. Practitioners need to not only keep pace with a continuously changing technology landscape, but they also need to be able to work smarter and more efficiently to combat the backlog of evidence. Training like this can help on both counts.”
Glen Gainer, president and CEO of NW3C, said his organization is looking forward to partnering with Marshall to offer this training opportunity.
“Technology is constantly evolving, and law enforcement’s investigative strategies and techniques have to keep pace,” Gainer said. “This five-day training event will prepare the participants to meet the ever-expanding challenge of collecting and preserving data generated by the Internet of Things (IoT) and other technological advances.
“Law enforcement must be able to competently identify, seize and preserve evidence from all kinds of digital devices,” Gainer continued. “We are confident that the Cyber Investigations Bootcamp will make the participants more effective, efficient and knowledgeable as they face these challenges.”
Law enforcement officers from Georgia, Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia will be attending the training. Marshall University faculty joining Sammons in teaching for this bootcamp experience will be Assistant Professor Josh Brunty and Professor Peggy Brown. Housed in the university’s College of Science, Marshall’s Department of Forensic Science is among the university’s fastest growing departments. It leads the region in the use of state-of-the-art technology to train students in the most advanced techniques for solving crime and other legal, investigative and security problems.