Wednesday 9 November 2011

Institute of Digital Forensics

There is a study on computer forensics in Japan done by Liu,et al. [1]. According to the paper, Japan has been committed on fighting cybercrime and cyber terrorism. The paper analyzes the political structures, legal systems, law enforcement infrastructures and academic development in computer forensics.
It seems the political structure in Malaysia and Japan is similar where both countries consist the components of Executive, Judiciary and Legislative. On the judiciary both countries have supreme and high courts to judge the cybercrime cases. The cybercrime cases in Japan are mainly handled by the National Police Agency for investigation.
According to the paper, the cybercrime in Japan has risen since 2003. Fraud and fraud using the Internet are the highest in 2007 with 1512 and 1229 cases respectively. The lowest is cybercrime of copyright at 165 cases in 2007.
One notable development of digital forensics in Japan is the establishment of The Institute of Digital Forensics a non-profit organization. It looks into the area of development of technology, globalization, legal reform, public awareness, civilian research and development and higher education in computer forensics. It is acting as the intermediary among stakeholders, government, national police agency, industry, education and promoting the development of computer forensics in Japan. 
To have an Institute of Digital Forensics like Japan to move forward the progress of digital forensics further is ideal. It is worthwhile by looking at the contribution of CyberSecurity Malaysia's Digital Forensics Department since year 2000. With this trust and appointment, more programs can be delivered. One of the examples is cooperation among digital forensics organization among other countries. The cooperation can be in terms of research and development initiatives with the aim to reduce the cost to establish a digital forensics outfit.
[1] J. Liu and T. Uehara. “Computer Forensics in Japan: A Preliminary Study.” The 2009 International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security, pp. 1007-1011, 2009.