With an increasingly popular series of classes in digital forensics, Marshall University is training a new generation of students to keep up with this new generation of crime.

As the darker side of human behavior continues to manifest digitally there comes a pressing need for training in how to find, sort, analyze and make evidence of it legally usable, said assistant professor John Sammons, a former Huntington Police Department drug unit investigator.

He and his colleagues hope to make digital forensics its own major some day. Meanwhile, the university is now advertising for two new department faculty who will start next fall, one of whom will focus on cyber security issues. For now, students take part in a series of computer lab and lecture classes, as they track the trail of digital evidence through computers, networks, cell phones, and the Internet cloud.

Source: Gazette-Mail