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The Walter Reed Army Medical Center will train wounded soldiers in digital forensics so that they can be deployed as cybersecurity investigators.
The Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington is planning to train wounded soldiers in the science of digital forensics so they can become cybersecurity investigators.
The three-year, $1 million project is primarily funded by the National Science Foundation. The training will be offered through a partnership between Walter Reed, Mississippi State University, Auburn University and Tuskegee University, It is modeled on a similar course in digital forensics completed by more than 2,400 law-enforcement officers from more than 20 states.
The project, which begins Jan. 29th, will be delivered under garrison commander Col. Bruce Haselden’s Transition Employment Assistance Management Service Division. Classes will be offered at no cost to Defense Department and Veterans Administration participants in the training.
Wounded veterans will be able to attend at least six classes at Walter Reed. The courses are designed to teach them to become digital forensics investigators in cybersecurity. Classes will focus on analyzing collected media, and will be taught in three phases to accommodate veterans with varying levels of computer experience and physical limitations. Priority to participate in the courses will be given to minorities and to women veterans.
“The alarming number of cyber intrusions and identity thefts require [that] we greatly increase the number of first responders to assist the public and private sectors by quickly identifying and remediating cyber events,” said Robert F. Lentz, chief information assurance officer for the Office of the Secretary of Defense. “Making this program available to our wounded warriors is a tremendous accomplishment.”
In addition to cyber intrusions and identity theft, digital forensics also is used to analyze computer systems belonging to defendants in criminal cases or litigants in civil cases. The science is also used to recover data after hardware or software failures, as well as aid in debugging, performance optimization and reverse-engineeering of computer systems.
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