Why digital forensics is not a profession and how it can become one

Abstract

ABSTRACTDigital forensics (DF) has existed since the 1970s when industry and government first began developing tools to investigate end users engaging in Web-enabled financial fraud. Over the next 40 years, DF evolved until, in 2010, the National Research Council ‘officially’ recognized DF as a forensic discipline. Over its evolution, DF developed some of the traits of a profession, which sociologists suggest include the following: (1) specialized knowledge; (2) specialized training; (3) work that is of great value; (4) credat emptor (‘let the buyer trust’) relations with clients; (5) a code of professional ethics; (6) cooperative relations with other members; (7) high levels of autonomy; and (8) self-regulation. This paper reviews the development of DF and argues that despite making strides, DF has not yet achieved the status of a profession as described by social scientists, and that it will not achieve that status until it remedies several deficiencies and addresses impediments preventing it from attaining that status, including the perceived low social status of the field’s clientele and an inability of the field to convince the public it occupies a unique place within the larger division of labor in society.