Digital forensic readiness: Expert perspectives on a theoretical framework

Abstract

Modern organizations need to develop ‘digital forensic readiness’ to comply with their legal, contractual, regulatory, security and operational obligations. A review of academic and practitioner literature revealed a lack of comprehensive and coherent guidance on how forensic readiness can be achieved. This is compounded by the lack of maturity in the discourse of digital forensics rooted in the informal definitions of key terms and concepts. In this paper we validate and refine a digital forensic readiness framework through a series of expert focus groups. Drawing on the deliberations of experts in the focus groups, we discuss the critical issues facing practitioners in achieving digital forensic readiness.