Thames Valley Police Changes Its Approach To Cyber Crime Forensics With Spektor

Cyber Crime evidence-talks-spectorWith cyber crime on the increase and the types of threats it poses continuing to evolve, there is a growing requirement for the police to develop a talent pool of investigators equipped to deal with online fraud and other forms of cyber-enabled crimes.

Thames Valley Police introduced Evidence Talks’ SPEKTOR digital triage technology in its Forensic Investigation Unit a year ago and is already yielding some impressive process improvements.

SPEKTOR collects targeted data or conducts full forensic images from removable media such as hard disk drives, USB sticks and memory cards. Delivering a flexible digital triage solution for in-the-field activities, the system uses standard removable USB devices as ‘collectors’, allowing many targets to be processed at once.

Principal CSI Clare Heron manages the digital triage project at the unit’s headquarters in Oxford and acknowledges how the introduction of this new technology is proving a valuable aid in helping them to service some of the strategic directives outlined in the force’s Delivery Plan.

“For us, the key objective to ensure public confidence and victim satisfaction remain high has to be based on adopting new and innovative approaches to transforming our service. A key part of the Delivery Plan, facilitated by SPEKTOR, is developing the role of our Crime Scene Investigators (CSI) to further support the activities of our High Tech Crime Unit (HTCU), create higher efficiencies in case management and ultimately reduce the impact around high tech crime.”

While it’s still relatively new for them, the intuitiveness of this system has meant that the ten front-line officers trained in the use of SPEKTOR have been able to quickly adapt to taking on more responsibility at the crime scene and making important decisions on the outcome of examined data.”

Designed for use by non-technical investigators, SPEKTOR allows front-line police and other enforcement officers to rapidly preserve and automatically examine data stored on computers, servers and mass storage devices. Using standard, accepted forensic techniques it preserves and protects original data while creating full forensic images or collecting targeted files.

Using a combination of SPEKTOR desktop devices, the team of trained officers from Thames Valley Police’s Forensic Investigation Unit now play an active role in rapidly identifying and retrieving evidence from devices at the scene of a crime involving child sexual exploitation, illicit drug supply and other fraudulent crimes requiring the capture of illicit imagery.

In allowing target data to be quickly identified without needing to be taken from the scene for examination by specialist units, SPEKTOR is helping the force to streamline the asset retrieval process and ensure the efficient and speedy processing of evidence. As well as freeing up more of HTCU’s time to deal with a backlog of cases and enabling them to move on to ‘live’ cases more quickly, this also offers a speedier resolution for those individuals under investigation.

The early successes achieved by Thames Valley Police in Berkshire and Buckinghamshire have influenced the decision to extend the roll out across the entire force to include Oxfordshire, with the force planning to train at least 50% of their CSIs on the use of SPEKTOR in the near future.

SPEKTOR Annual workshop Day

The second annual SPEKTOR workshop day, hosted by Evidence Talks for all law enforcement users and potential users using the excellent facilities at KENTS HILL PARK TRAINING & CONFERENCE CENTRE in MILTON KEYNES, will take place on Wednesday 5th October 2016.

Learn with colleagues how to get the most from ETL’s triage tools and discover new tips and techniques.

Rates
Day Delegate £40 + VAT
24-hour package £120 + VAT fully inclusive of evening meal, overnight accommodation, breakfast and workshop

See home page at www.evidencetalks.com for details or call 0845 1254400