Presentation: Pedagogical Issues in Digital Forensics: A Case Study

Anil Aggarwal
Accounting and MIS Department
aaggarwal@ubalt.edu
University of Baltimore
Baltimore, MD

Veena Adlakha
Management Department
vadlakha@ubalt.edu
University of Baltimore
Baltimore, MD
 

ABSTRACT

With worsening economy, more and more cases of fraud, theft and other legal violations are emerging. Collapse of Enron to Madoff Ponzi scheme has created an urgent need for systematic approach to identify and investigate these violations. Forensics science can assist in diagnosing such crimes. According to Wikipedia, “forensics encompasses the accepted scholarly or scientific methodology and norms under which the facts regarding an event, or an artifact, or some other physical item (such as a corpse, or cadaver, for example) are to the broader notion of authentication whereby an interest outside of a legal form exists in determining whether an object is in fact what it purports to be, or is alleged as being.” The above issues make computer forensics a necessary topic for information systems students. Thus it is important for MIS students to understand this emerging area of technology. Computer forensics requires skills from many disciplines, mainly information systems, computer science, psychology, sociology and law. This inter-disciplinary nature of computer forensics makes it very challenging topic to teach. Some effort has already started in this direction. many universities are offering full scale programs and even degrees in digital forensics. Overill (2009) discusses digital forensics modules for computer and forensics science students. This paper goes a step further and discusses teaching digital forensics as part of an introductory information systems course (Haag and Cummins, 2008) and the pedagogical issues related to teaching digital forensics “without” the digital forensics lab.

Paper describes our experience and discusses alternate ways of teaching digital forensics and will discuss results of such experiments. Digital forensics is becoming important as economy moves into recession and more and more computer based fraud are committed. Forensics methodology usage is widespread in all business fields including accounting, finance, production, economics etc. Many functional areas have come under scrutiny for fraud, embezzlement of funds, information gaps etc. and many are committed using information technologies. As internet grows so does internet based fraud. What is interesting is that fraud is spreading into once reliable supply chain area. The latest Kroll Global Fraud Report highlights the growing danger of supply chain fraud to businesses worldwide. Large companies have increasingly become “extended enterprises” as they have globalized, outsourced, re-engineered their business processes, brought business partners and vendors closer and specialised their functions. The result makes them more complex and leaves them vulnerable to an array of frauds ranging from simple theft, to the misrepresentation of inventory to fool investors, through to counterfeiting, grey market diversion and piracy. (Kroll, 2008). According to Richard Abbey of Kroll, “Fraud thrives on complexity and companies are facing fraud from the very beginning, on every single factor: raw materials, production, and delivery,” . This implies digital forensics is not confined to information systems but it can be used to detect fraud in supply chain management (SCM), inventory management, outsourcing and similar complex processes. The investigation process may be little different in SCM and may involve digital forensics experts, accountants and production specialists.

We must prepare students to recognize and prevent fraud irrespective to the business area. Also we must teach them how to investigate cases of fraud using digital forensics. This paper is an attempt in that direction.