New Approaches to the Application of Digital Forensics in Cybersecurity: A Proposal

The challenges faced by organizations in effectively carrying out digital forensic operations have been identified to include poor capacity and defective Information and Communications Technology (ICT) policies, resulting in organizational cluelessness when high profile cyberattacks occur. Organizational unpreparedness in the face of cyberattacks leads to negative impacts including operational disruption, financial loss, reputation damage and crippling litigations. Unfortunately, the sophistication of contemporary cyberattacks makes their investigations even more difficult except where a methodical approach for forensic data collection and analysis is adopted. This paper proposes the Randomized Cyberattack Simulation Model (RCSM) as a checklist for assessing corporate preparedness to digital forensics and as a systematic approach towards enshrining organizational incident response capabilities. The paper also proposes the Baseline Data Classification Model (BDCM) as a pre-forensic data categorization model. Prudent application of both models can potentially mitigate the impacts of cyberattacks on operational sustainability and organizational survivability across all sectors.