Computer forensics market ireland?

Swindon

Anyone here know what the current market in computer forensics is like in ireland?,i would think its a bit slow at the moment but going to pick up gradually over the next few years,does anyone currently work in this area or are the jobs based mostly in the uk...was thinking of doing a masters in CF but unsure of the job prospects after it..anyone any info

Einstein

2 friends of mine are involved in it. One is well qualified. Worked with Ersnt & Young for a long time, living in the UK now working for the British Police I think, the other is doing a 2 year course one night a week. It's serious stuff. I'm not in the IT industry anymore, but if i was going back to it that's what I'd do!

D

Swindon

Divers wrote: »

2 friends of mine are involved in it. One is well qualified. Worked with Ersnt & Young for a long time, living in the UK now working for the British Police I think, the other is doing a 2 year course one night a week. It's serious stuff. I'm not in the IT industry anymore, but if i was going back to it that's what I'd do!

D

When you say serious stuff how do u mean? where is your friend doing the course? im thinking of doing MSc in CS in the future...still a bit uncertain though

Einstein

serious as in my mate seized a computer once, and when they dismantled it they discovered 2 shotgun shells rigged to the power button. So if the pc had been turned on by the regular power switch the thing would have exploded.

He loves it though

Also the detail in recovery and drilling down thru "destroyed" hard drives can be uber time consuming and meticulous work. Savage money in it though!

He showed me a bit of the curriculum and I really do find it very interesting!

Dave

Swindon

Divers wrote: »

2 friends of mine are involved in it. One is well qualified. Worked with Ersnt & Young for a long time, living in the UK now working for the British Police I think, the other is doing a 2 year course one night a week. It's serious stuff. I'm not in the IT industry anymore, but if i was going back to it that's what I'd do!

D

do u know where he is doing the course though

Einstein

hmmm...leave that one with me

ianhobo

There is an MSC in forensic computing run in DCU, I considered it myself, but by all accounts, finding work after can be *very* difficult.

Opted for the M.Eng in telecommunications instead

Swindon

ianhobo wrote: »

There is an MSC in forensic computing run in DCU, I considered it myself, but by all accounts, finding work after can be *very* difficult.

Opted for the M.Eng in telecommunications instead

Easier to find work with the above ya?

Gavin

Just about all graduates from the security masters have gotten jobs. Forensics work is getting big, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, Rits and some of the other large accountancy firms hire a good few people.

I'm a bit dubious of

serious as in my mate seized a computer once, and when they dismantled it they discovered 2 shotgun shells rigged to the power button. So if the pc had been turned on by the regular power switch the thing would have exploded.

He loves it though

Also the detail in recovery and drilling down thru "destroyed" hard drives can be uber time consuming and meticulous work. Savage money in it though!

The shotgun shell one is something of an urban myth.. It would also be extremely rare to perform hardware level data recovery. Scanning tunneling microscope's are a bit expensive. Your mate workin for GCHQ or something ?

Martyr

i've heard of crooks/pedophiles using magnets triggered by remote.

Gavin

Average Joe wrote: »

i've heard of crooks/pedophiles using magnets triggered by remote.

You'd need a magnet the size of a fridge to do the job.

Gav

Martyr

i'm only quoting someone from interpol
more specifically, electro magnets.

Gavin

Average Joe wrote: »

i'm only quoting someone from interpol
more specifically, electro magnets.

http://www.garner-products.com/PD-8700.htm

Bulky things.

Martyr

thats a pretty big fridge, Verb.

i'm sure there are degaussers available, using remote trigger, but don't destroy the disk physically, which would encapsulate a regular sized harddrive..there has to be.

i found something a little smaller than that PD8000, still bulky - but looking like it could be miniturised, re-designed to fit inside a desktop.

SouperComputer

serious as in my mate seized a computer once, and when they dismantled it they discovered 2 shotgun shells rigged to the power button. So if the pc had been turned on by the regular power switch the thing would have exploded

I take it this was either a long time ago or it was a very old XT computer? The modern current and voltage going through the power swich on a PC would barely twitch a mouses nuts let alone set off shotgun shells! Now if it was the PSU, then thats another story.


Back OT..... The market is growing for sure, but as usual theres lots of chancers out there battling for people's money.

FWIW, the small amount of forensics study and work I did was very interesting in theory, but when it came to the jobs themselves they were monotouns and boring. Its a looooong process. But if you are into that sort of thing, great.

mcloughl

The job market for forensics is not as appealing as you might think. A simple search through Irish Jobs or Monster shows the true picture. As usual though the UK is a little ahead with more roles in this area.

I have been engaged in this area over the last 4 years or so with tooling like Encase and the open source tools as well, Autopsy, Coroners Toolkit etc. its not as exciting as people think with hours spent looking at Encase acquiring media or running key word searches.

The one thing I would say is the industry and tooling focus in this part of the world is very much focused on content ie images and internet/email artifacts. Some of the so called 'Big 5' accountancy firms who play in this area would be left head scratching if you presented a rooted or compromised Linux server for examination.

I started off with the open source stuff with some submissions to the honeynet project and moved on to Encase (with some advanced) product training. The last company I worked in was very large with a serious compliance load so I was kept busy. Some of the stuff that I worked on went to the High Court which we won with.

In summary anyone can run Encase with a bit of instruction but the real skill is in maintaining chain of evidence and interpretation of results

Static M.e.

mcloughl

Out of interest, where did you study forensics? and would you (\The industry) rate any course over another?

Thanks

Swindon

ya exactly is there any good courses here? seem to be mostly in the uk,i was looking at this one in glasgow

http://personal.cis.strath.ac.uk/~if/forensicInformatics/

any of ye guys in the industry care to take a quick look through the sylabus and comment on the stuff covered...

Screaming Monkey

have a look here, some comments on it
http://www.forensicfocus.com/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=1920

GerryRyan

Waterford IT has a great course along the same lines -

http://www2.wit.ie/StudyatWIT/UndergraduateCourses/Science/BScHonsinComputerForensics-WD161/

Went along to the open day and all just for that course. I got a C1 in OL Maths and couldn't get it in (needed a B3). Even tho I had more than enough points in the other subjects.

Have a good knowledge and interest in all things IT and security related, and am making good money on website design - and I know a guy who got into it with absolutely no interest in computers and has since dropped out.

Another flaw with our CAO system

Gavin

You need reasonable maths to get through a computer science course

Swindon

ya im looking for a masters course in CS though,seems like dublin is the only masters in ireland...

cros13

Best thing to do I'd say is the EC-Coucil Computer forensics course.
I did a while ago. Its very hands on and teaches the real skills.

http://www.eccouncil.org/

Swindon

cros13 wrote: »

Best thing to do I'd say is the EC-Coucil Computer forensics course.
I did a while ago. Its very hands on and teaches the real skills.

http://www.eccouncil.org/

Did you get a job out of it?

Quoi?

Just doing a little googling - that CEH Course is pretty expensive - found 2 Irish places advertising it, but neither give pricing. However, the cheapest I saw for a UK place was around £2300 including VAT & Exam fee - so I reckon you could guesstimate it at at least €3000, plus a little extra as it often is here... or, you can fly to Delhi, India, & do the course there - total cost including flights of about €2000! Other places in the UK want around £3000! Though I didnt go so far as to research the individual training centers as regards quality.

Looking over the course outline, it looks to be similar to doing both of 7Safe's CSTA and CSTP?

From the curriculum, would I be right in saying that that would be more about security(at different levels of course), than mathematical forensics?

donaghs

In relation top jobs in this area, "Internal Audit"-type departments in the Big 4 accountancy firms do hire some computer forensic people. Wouldn't say these positions come up very often though. I know someone who works in this area.

Swindon

donaghs wrote: »

In relation top jobs in this area, "Internal Audit"-type departments in the Big 4 accountancy firms do hire some computer forensic people. Wouldn't say these positions come up very often though. I know someone who works in this area.

Yes id say hard to get into these positions...outside of dublin theres prob feck all..

dave878

for anybody interested in computer forensics
i would recommend reading "Traces of Guilt" by Neil Barrett (NON-FICTION)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Traces-Guilt-Neil-Barrett/dp/0593051866


incidently, if anybody has "The Art Of Deception" , i would do a swap by post.
PM me

RoyalMarine

ive got that dave but wouldnt trade it for the world.

as for the forensics course in WIT, ill be there myself come september!

mature student all the way!

quinta

Re: Requiring good level of maths for some of these courses, I wouldn't say that. I did a Masters in IT Security, I took Advanced Cryptography (which was maths intensive) in the second year. No more than leaving cert maths is required.

As for the Computer Forensics courses in Ireland, they aren't really worth much. This is from experience of working and hiring people who have done them, the forensics in them boils down to showing you how to use Encase and Helix and some secure coding thrown in. You're better off getting a 2 week course with Encase themselves, or doing one of the coures out of Shrivenham or Cranfield.

http://www.cranfield.ac.uk/dcmt/postgraduatestudy/forensic%20computing/index.jsp

Swindon

anyone know how good the above course is?

St0n3d

Swindon wrote: »

Anyone here know what the current market in computer forensics is like in ireland?,i would think its a bit slow at the moment but going to pick up gradually over the next few years,does anyone currently work in this area or are the jobs based mostly in the uk...was thinking of doing a masters in CF but unsure of the job prospects after it..anyone any info

Did it for a few weeks. Mostly Uk based indeed. BUt there are a few companies in Ireland making a bomb.

Im talking about 1000 Euro each drive i was getting, then anything else was still huge money.. Market will grow in next 2 years guarenteed

Swindon

St0n3d wrote: »

Did it for a few weeks. Mostly Uk based indeed. BUt there are a few companies in Ireland making a bomb.

Im talking about 1000 Euro each drive i was getting, then anything else was still huge money.. Market will grow in next 2 years guarenteed

Did what for a few weeks,masters or working in the area? Did u not like the work,do u think there will eventually be a fair amount of jobs to be got in CF in ireland?

T-Square

St0n3d wrote: »

Did it for a few weeks. Mostly Uk based indeed. BUt there are a few companies in Ireland making a bomb.

Im talking about 1000 Euro each drive i was getting, then anything else was still huge money.. Market will grow in next 2 years guarenteed

What do they do with the drives?