As technology continues to integrate itself into our lives, we must deeply consider that there are several threat actors taking advantage of the many opportunities that are arising. The internet has us surrounded and most everything is digitally interconnected. This includes private files, money and several other necessary credentials. With the rise of cybercrime, we must have strong cybercrime investigators which would include cyber forensic analysts.
As technology continues to evolve, cyber forensics gains its importance. Now more than ever we can communicate with people, nations, cultures around the globe and vice versa. With “the opportunities that such evolution brings to all levels of society come with unprecedented challenges in the context of criminal prosecution in cyberspace.” (Casino et al. 2022) From a social science standpoint with regards to relativism we can consider how the rise of technology causes the rise of international cybercrimes. With international cybercrimes think about how cyber forensics must now be conducted across borders which forces several nations to come to accordance over jurisdiction and evidence. This also causes countries to harden their cyber defense mechanisms and their cyber operations. This reference of relativism can also include the principle of determinism. Since we have cyber-crimes, we have cyber forensics, because of cyber forensics society has cyber law and regulations which at some point can help us persecute these difficult cases. We consistently learn from past mistakes and compiled digital evidence. This enables us to continually adapt our responses to emerging technologies and cyber incidents.
Cyber forensic analysts must be heavily considered when we regard the cost of cyber-crimes as well. “The costs incurred by cyber events can largely be differentiated among first- and third-party losses. First-party losses relate to expenses the firm incurred as a direct result of the incident. For example, in the case of a data breach, this would include the cost of forensic investigation to determine the cause.” (Romanosky et al. 2016) Most members of society will be heavily affected once we consider this aspect. Those who are not economically sound are heavily disadvantaged. This does not only mean individuals themselves but whole countries, as more developed countries are able to invest more into their cyber defense.
Cyber forensics are used to investigate the actions of nation states. This is examined in Basant Hassib’s article Manipulating Uncertainty: Cybersecurity Politics in Egypt, with the current political environment Bassant argues how “cybersecurity provides the Egyptian government and opposition activists to “manipulate uncertainty” to their advantage. Each side uses cybersecurity policies, practices, and technologies to restrict their adversary’s scope for action, seeking to make the other more predictable while retaining or increasing their own freedom of action” (2021) The analysis was supported by the Digital Forensics Research Lab. It reveals the political and social dynamics of cyber forensics, demonstrating how governments and private entities enforce policies and laws. In Egypt this would affect certain ethnic, religious and social groups, but the authoritative control of the internet and the cyber domain affects several countries. With the help of cyber forensics, we can study this phenomenon and its effect on silence groups of society.
Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory can be considered when we think about cyber forensic analysts as this theory considers reward interest and goal driven persistence. Cyber forensic analysts are essentially piecing together evidence to solve a bigger issue. As our modules have shown “those most likely to be interested in cybersecurity careers were those with higher self-efficacy….and more investigative interests (Bashir et al).
Technological advancements will continue to populate along with the world of cybersecurity with forensic analysts these professionals will continue to output laws, policies and frameworks to help advance and protect society. Social science will help us understand how we can integrate human and social factors to conform cybersecurity with the public.
References
Fran Casino, Claudia Pina, Pablo López-Aguilar, Edgar Batista, Agusti Solanas, Constantinos Patsakis, SoK: cross-border criminal investigations and digital evidence, Journal of Cybersecurity, Volume 8, Issue 1, 2022, tyac014, https://doi.org/10.1093/cybsec/tyac014
Sasha Romanosky, Examining the costs and causes of cyber incidents, Journal of Cybersecurity, Volume 2, Issue 2, December 2016, Pages 121–135, https://doi.org/10.1093/cybsec/tyw001
Bassant Hassib, James Shires, Manipulating uncertainty: cybersecurity politics in Egypt, Journal of Cybersecurity, Volume 7, Issue 1, 2021, tyaa026, https://doi.org/10.1093/cybsec/tyaa026