Hello Community,
I will be pursuing my masters at Penn State University in PA and they have given me a green light to build a computer forensics lab. However, I am not sure what should go into a forensics lab, not sure how many labs are out there, I would like to make it as real world as possible. Any ideas and/or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
I also want to know the answer. I am planning to build a lab. But I don't think it is enough that just to buy some hardware and software.
Hi there
Are we talking about a lab for investigation of electronic media, or a lab for data recovery? Although related the definition of 'lab' changes somewhat.
Nick
I guess I would say both.
If you want it to be a functional lab I think you need at least 2 forensic workstations. You could run open source tools on one and a commercial tool (FTK, EnCase) on the other. Generally, you either need all the cables/drives to image all the media, or an imaging device such as a Solo. To that end, be prepared to buy a lot of imaging hard drives to image source media on to. I can get more specific if you want, just not sure the direction that you want your lab to take.
I would like you to be very detailed, from what I know I have a large budget to play with. Please be as detailed as possible in terms of software, hardware, workstations and so forth.
Define large budget.
Well I think its under 100K (more can be reuqested if needed), assuming that I draft the request letters for all the materials, workstations, software, hardware, etc, its an investment for the school to possibly spin off classes from it.
I built a two workstation forensic lab for around 25k. I'll send specifics to you later tonight.
I need more detail list too. for computer forensic lab , not for data recovery lab.
can you also send the specifics to me?