A national computer forensics lab for the US has been established in Alabama.

The facility, developed by the US Secret Service and partially funded by the Department of Homeland Security’s National Cyber Security Division, will serve as a national cyber crimes training facility for prosecutors and judges as well as law enforcement investigators.

Facilities will include classrooms, a computer forensic lab, an evidence vault, storage and server rooms, public education exhibit space, and a conference room. Training will be based on the current US Secret Service curriculum including basic electronic crimes investigation, network intrusion investigation and computer forensics.

The establishment of the lab comes at a time when computer forensics techniques are increasingly applied to the investigation of a variety of crimes, not just those involving computers, as internet and mobile phone technologies become a pervasive part of everyday life. ®

Related stories

• US laws restrict computer forensics to gumshoes (7 January 2008)
• CeBIT GigaStor to hunt zero-day breaches (14 March 2007)
• Comment Blanket discovery for stolen laptops (13 March 2007)
• Man sues MS after FBI uncovers smut surfing habits (6 March 2007)
• Comment Was Julie Amero wrongly convicted? (14 February 2007)
• Mobile forensics turns up heat on suspects (11 February 2007)
• Vista encryption 'no threat' to computer forensics (2 February 2007)
• London police can't cope with cybercrime (1 February 2007)
• Forensics reaches into the future (27 December 2006)