Digital Investigation Challenges in an
Evolving Threat Landscape
Ongoing digitalization has not only provided investigation teams with new technology
systems and capabilities, but, unfortunately, it has given threat actors additional cover to
conduct malicious operations and to evade detection As threat actors increase their technical
sophistication, the need intensifies for investigation teams to have a robust investigative
platform with data fusion and analytics capabilities that will both react to events already in-
progress and create a more proactive security posture to prevent incidents from happening
altogether
This approach will require tackling the exponential rise in the amount of data now being
generated, analyzed, and stored for investigations, as well as figuring out a means to
synthesize and conduct analysis on diverse data sets and source materials. Security
organizations must not only manage and fuse their internal data sources, but also the data
coming from other governmental organizations, data from open sources, and data provided
from third parties through court orders. Without first fusing and making sense of this
disparate data, they cannot employ advanced analytics to analyze it at scale. The significant
shortage of qualified analysts, data scientists, and investigators occurring industry-wide
highlights the increased need for more automated analysis functions that enable operators
to focus on higher-value investigative matters, rather than on manual data analysis. The
efficiency generated from a digital intelligence platform should carry over into higher quality
and faster time to resolution for the investigations being conducted.
Today’s threat environment, one that now bridges between physical and cyber threats,
creates a significant challenge for government organizations when it comes to building
out modern investigation capabilities As the crime and terror landscape evolves, security
organizations’ mandates are shifting, and the types of threats they must investigate are
changing, which necessitates that any support technology systems keep pace with rapid
changes. A digital intelligence platform must have a flexible data model that can handle new
types of data sources as they emerge and become relevant to investigations, whether mobile
payment app transactions, dark web forum posts, or digital forensics.
As the crime and terror landscape evolves,
security organizations’ mandates are shifting, and the
types of threats they must investigate are changing, which
necessitates that any support technology systems
keep pace with rapid changes.
The Benefits of Digital Intelligence Platforms to Big Data Investigations
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