Career Paper

Introduction

We have been assigned to select a type of cybersecurity career and write a paper describing how professionals in that career require and depend on social science research and social science principles in that particular career.  The career that I chose for the purposes of this paper is a digital forensic investigator because it seems like an interesting profession and did not know much about it before researching it for this assignment.

Main Points

As the modern world has become hyperconnected in the digital age of the internet and all that comes with those technological advancements there has become a need for investigators that can review digital evidence to solve crimes.  That profession is called a digital forensics investigator and the social sciences and the understanding of them are critical to being a successful investigator in this field of work. 

Digital forensics is where electronic data is analyzed so that evidence can be obtained to solve a crime.  The crime can be varied as traditional crimes that predate the digital era can now be solved by digging into the electronic evidence available at any crime scene.  While this is certainly a new avenue of collecting evidence the social sciences are still very much necessary and critical to being a competent digital forensics investigator.  Criminology, economics, political science, psychology, sociology and other social sciences influence human beings regardless of whether those people are acting in the digital realm or in the physical “real” world so understanding human behavior and the motivations of people and why they act and do things is crucial to being able to solve cases. 

Forensic evidence in general is a relatively new field compared to that of a detective which has been around for hundreds or even thousands of years.  The ability of forensic investigators to work hand in hand with more traditional criminal deterrence careers has resulted in higher rates of solved crimes and hopefully that can act as a deterrent to future criminals.  The key is for forensic investigators and their traditional counterparts to realize that they all are working towards a common goal and that while scientific evidence and digital evidence have allowed major advances in investigative techniques that the social sciences and how those allow for solving a crime are still as relevant as ever.  Without understanding human behavior the ability to interpret digital evidence would not be very helpful to solving a crime and so anyone wanting a career as a digital forensic investigator would be well served to spend time learning and understanding social sciences just as much as they learn the requisite skills to be able to comb through digital data to locate potential evidence.

Conclusion

Digital forensic investigators are an important part of deterrence and mitigation of cyber crime and the demand for their skills is not likely to diminish in the coming years.  Social sciences play a large part in being a competent and successful digital forensic investigator much as the social sciences have for all good detectives and sleuths for hundreds of years now.  The ability to understand human behavior has and always will be a major tool for anyone trying to effectively counteract criminal behavior and so it is logical that it is no different for the career of a digital forensic investigator.

Works Cited:

Balakrishnan, V., Casey, E., Chabot, Y., Turnbull, B., Walnycky, D., Abel, F., Mutawa, N. A., Alami, S., Ali, S., Almishari, M., Bader, M., Bell, G., Bojars, U., Breslin, J. G., Breslin, J., Browning, J. G., Cal, C. D., Carrier, B., Casser, T., Icmec. (2019, February 10). Evidence collection and forensics on social networks: Research challenges and directions. Digital Investigation. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1742287618302937

Digital Forensics. INTERPOL. (n.d.). https://www.interpol.int/en/How-we-work/Innovation/Digital-forensics

Browning, K., Thinkstock. (n.d.). Social Science Research on Forensic Science: The story behind one of Nij’s newest research portfolios. National Institute of Justice. https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/social-science-research-forensic-science-story-behind-one-nijs-newest-research