‘Digital forensics a rapidly evolving field of Investigation’

Islamabad : The speakers at a seminar here on Wednesday were of the view the digital forensics is a rapidly evolving field mainly focused on the extraction, preservation and analysis of digital evidence obtained from electronic devices in a manner that is legally acceptable.

The seminar on Digital Forensics was organised by Cyber Crime Wing at FIA Headquarters, Islamabad. It was the first ever national seminar arranged to bring together leading researchers, eminent scholars, industry experts and members of law enforcement agencies on a national level platform to advance the quality of digital forensics by exchanging their knowledge, experiences and results. The objective of this platform was to produce outputs that can help investigators assess the overall state of a system. Moreover, the seminar was a pre-cursor to provide an atmosphere of knowledge sharing between academicians and practitioners, to identify the best practices and to institutionalize the knowledge.

The speakers were of the view that the ubiquitous nature of our digital lifestyle presents many avenues for the potential misuse of electronic devices in crimes that directly involve, or are facilitated by, these technologies. Research into new methodologies, tools and techniques within this domain is necessitated by an ever-increasing dependency on tech gadgets.

Ayaz Khan from FIA discussed the International best practices of Digital Forensics while Mehmoodul Hassan briefed the audience about the methodologies and tools of forensics department at FIA. Mr. Salman explained the challenges faced by the agency and presented the way forward for Cybercrime Wing.

Waqar Ahmed Chohan, Director, CCW, discussed the strategy being followed to enhance the capacity and efficiency of CCW to meet the challenges of upcoming technologies.

Kaukab Zuberi from Digital Forensics Research Centre at Garrison University Lahore discussed the white collar crime and importance of digital evidence.

Dr. Haider Abbas from MCS-NUST stressed the importance of R&D for law enforcement agencies in order to keep up the pace with evolving forensic technology and to meet modern day challenges by relying on indigenous efforts.

Dr. Kashif Kifayat from National Centre for Cyber Security at Air University informed the audience about the strategy of government to develop a cybersecurity ecosystem by establishing 11 state-of-the-art labs in Pakistan. The ADG Cyber Crime Wing FIA Ehsan Sadiq emphasized on crystallization of ideas, synergizing the efforts of leading universities as well as the law enforcement agencies thereby fostering a long lasting relationship to bridge the gaps between the entities.

In his concluding remarks, DG, FIA, Wajid Zia, expressed his views that this event will provide multiple opportunities for all the participants to communicate with each other and grow together while providing several networking opportunities to develop professional relationships to counter the challenges of cybercrime and digital forensics.