Digital Forensics Dispatch

NIST Issues Challenge to Digital Forensic Experts

June 9, 2020

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently issued a challenge to all digital forensic experts, with a study to assess how well digital forensic experts as a community do their job. The leader of NIST’s digital forensic research program, Barbara Guttman said this about the study “We want to understand the state of the practice. Can experts produce accurate and reliable information when examining data from a digital device?”

The study itself contains two parts, the first part is a survey that asks questions about the participating examiner’s experience, place of work, etc. The second part is conducting examinations on a mobile device collection and collection of a computer hard drive. Each has a set of questions and its own scenario that participants aim to answer while conducting their investigations. To learn more about the study or to participate, click here. It is open to examiners in private and public sectors.

As a black box study, the focus is not specifically on how the participants reached their answer but instead on if they have given the correct answer. By comparing the answers given by participants, NIST plans to gain insight into the reliability of the method. NIST plans to publish the anonymized results to show the overall performance of the digital forensic community. Sensei’s examiners plan on participating in the challenge NIST has issued. Stay tuned for updates on the study and consider participating if you are a fellow digital forensic expert.

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