Hands-on Activities for Digital Forensics Education

As teaching professors we have noticed that hands-on activities for a digital forensics course fall into the following three categories: 1) activities that assist students in learning how to use common digital forensics tools; 2) activities that help students gain in-depth understanding of the basic concepts and fundamental knowledge that are presented in class lectures; 3) activities that promote students the development of mindsets and data analytical skills that are needed for a digital forensic investigator. Various formats are employed to develop these hands-on exercises in different categories. The educational objectives and student learning outcomes map well to the CAE-CD (Centers of Academic Excellence - Cyber Defense) outcomes by completing their forensic knowledge units.

In this paper, we share our idea and experience to design and implement such hands-on assignments in each category for meeting specific educational objectives. Sample exercises are briefly described to explain our idea in each category. Open-source tools and data sets are introduced for reference. Experiences, lessons, and sample feedback from students are discussed. Our results will provide a point of reference for those who teach digital forensics courses at a college or university or are developing a digital forensic curriculum.