A fierce debate regarding the regulation and licensing of forensic investigators is currently raging in the US. Many states are enacting laws that state only those with a private investigator’s license can undertake digital investigations. This has IT professionals up in arms as they feel that the laws allow anyone to claim expertise in a highly specialised field.

Network intrusion detection systems identify security threats by detecting malicious activity such as scans, denial of service attacks and unauthorised access through the examination of network traffic. They are installed at strategic points on the network to monitor traffic to and from all hosts on the network. Unlike a packet filter or firewall, where a packet filtering decision is made on weather or not to allow traffic to continue, network intrusion detection systems do not interfere with network traffic in any way. In simple terms these systems could be described as a packet sniffer that also analyses the captured packets.

Malwares attack and destroy your computer system. Be proactive by protecting your computer systems against them. Install appropriate anti-virus and anti-spyware, create a restore point, create a backup, and educate yourself so you can better defend your expensive computer and protect your privacy and data on the internet.

Spywares spy on your computer system, so you must make sure you protect your PC against these malwares. If you notice constant window pop ups that you did not trigger, or browser homepage that has changed, or a new toolbar installed on your browser and so on, you should perform a spyware scan immediately to get rid of the rogue program before your computer system is hijacked by a hacker.

Wherever we go, we leave a physical trace behind, and science can be used to find and identify those traces. The individual nature of these traces can form a trail back to an individual. This characteristic has been used for a surprising length of time which on investigation reveals examples such as the Chinese using fingerprints in the 700s and the re-construction of a newspaper fragment in a murder case in 1784.