Yesterday evening I attended the official opening of the new Digital Security and Forensics Laboratory at the University of Bedfordshire in Luton. The university runs forensics courses at undergraduate and postgraduate levels and has strong links with the industry, notably with 7Safe in Cambridge.

The lab is really impressively equipped, with fifteen Dell Precision T7400 quad core 4GB student workstations each with 2.5TB disk space and Dell PowerEdge and Power Vault servers. The forensics tools include Tableau T35 write Blockers and industry standard forensics software. The lab is completely network isolated to allow hazard free analysis of malware.

The equipment in this powerful facility was donated by Jan Telensky, CEO of AquaCity, Owner of RTI (Radio Tatras International), and CEO of Skillstrain, who has also endowed a computer graphics laboratory at the university.

What makes this lab special to me is that it is primarily aimed at training students to take their place in corporate internal forensics - a field that in my experience still lacks expertise at the moment. There is a growing need for rapid first line response to incidents which is not fully covered by callouts to specialist forensics consultancies, but it is all too easy for the integrity of potential evidence to be broken by local intervention before the exhibit gets to the bench of a Police forensics specialist. The courses that make use of this new facility will surely help to raise standards in a critical area of e-crime management, so I feel very positive for the future of corporate forensic practice, particularly noting the obvious commitment of those managing the programme and the enthusiasm of the students I met at the launch.

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