Digital Forensics: What it is and Why You Should Care
The availability of cheap storage, fast Internet speeds, and easy-to-use cloud services has made data collection more practical for businesses and individuals than ever before.
But that increased ease of data storage and transmission has also opened up new vulnerabilities to malicious actors.
This article will help you understand what digital forensics is, why it’s important to your company, and how it can help protect your company against cyber attackers.
Definition of Digital Forensics
Digital forensics refers to the process of collecting, analyzing, and preserving data from a computer or other digital device for investigative purposes. Digital forensics is also known as computer forensics.
When an organization suffers from a data breach, digital forensics can help determine when the breach occurred, what data was accessed, and what malicious entities were responsible for the breach. Digital forensics also plays an important role in compliance and regulatory policies, such as incident response plans and data breach notifications.
It is important to note that digital forensics isn’t just limited to data breaches and breaches of privacy. It can also be used to collect and analyze data to determine the origin of a cyber attack.
Why Should You Care About Digital Forensics?
Digital forensics is important because it is the only way to determine whether there has been a data breach. After a breach, investigators can use digital forensics to identify how much data was accessed and what type of data was taken.
It can also help determine who was responsible for the breach. When a breach occurs, the first thing an organization has to do is to inform the people who may have been affected by the breach. This can be challenging, especially if the breach occurred on multiple websites at once.
Digital forensics can help you identify which people were affected and analyze when and how the breach occurred to inform the people most affected by the breach.
How Can Digital Forensics Help Your Company?
Digital forensics can help your company in a variety of ways. Here are a few examples of how digital forensics can help protect your company’s sensitive data.
- Determine the origin of a cyber attack
If your company is under a cyber attack, digital forensics can help determine the source of the attack and what type of malicious activity is occurring.
- Data breach investigations
If your company suffers from a data breach, digital forensics can help determine who was affected by the breach and how much data was accessed. It can even help investigators determine how long the breach occurred.
- Audit Your Security
If your company is auditing its security, digital forensics can help determine whether certain systems are vulnerable to attack. It can also help identify the root cause of any security issues.
- Legal proceedings
If your company is involved in a legal proceeding, digital forensics can help prove the veracity of your claims.
- Protect the data of your customers
Digital forensics can help you protect the data of your customers and make sure that your company is compliant with the GDPR, HIPAA, and other data privacy regulations.
Tips for Protecting Data Through Digital Forensics
Here are a few tips to help you protect your company’s data through digital forensics:
- Train your employees
It is important to train your employees on data privacy so they know what to avoid doing online. You can also offer data privacy training to your customers to help them understand how to protect their sensitive data online.
- Monitor your data
You can’t know if you’ve been attacked unless you’re monitoring your data. It’s important to use the right tools to monitor your network and data for signs of malicious activity.
- Encrypt your data
If your company deals with sensitive data, you should consider encrypting it to protect it from malicious actors. If a breach occurs, the malicious actors will only have encrypted data, which won’t help them do anything with the information.
- Follow standard compliance procedures
If your company deals with sensitive data, you should follow the standard compliance procedures for that type of data. This will help you protect the data from malicious actors.
Summary
Digital forensics is an important part of any company that deals with sensitive data. It can help determine the source of a cyber attack, identify the extent of the damage caused by a data breach, and prove the veracity of your claims in a legal proceeding.
Digital forensics is important for protecting your company against cyber attacks and ensuring that your company complies with data privacy regulations like the GDPR.
By following best practices and using the right tools, you can lower your company’s risk of experiencing a breach and help investigators determine the source of any attack that does occur.
Recommended Reading: How to Protect Yourself from Hackers and Cybercriminals
