Digital forensics lab opens at Salve Regina

BRANDON CATALAN, who teaches courses in mobile forensics and principles of forensics at Salve Regina University, launches Cellebrite software on new equipment housed in the Administration of Justice department’s new digital forensics lab. Salve Regina is one of two higher educational institutions in New England – and the only in Rhode Island – to be named an official partner of Cellebrite. / COURTESY SALVE REGINA UNIVERSITY
BRANDON CATALAN, who teaches courses in mobile forensics and principles of forensics at Salve Regina University, launches Cellebrite software on new equipment housed in the Administration of Justice department’s new digital forensics lab. Salve Regina is one of two higher educational institutions in New England – and the only in Rhode Island – to be named an official partner of Cellebrite. / COURTESY SALVE REGINA UNIVERSITY

NEWPORT – A new digital forensics lab opened recently at Salve Regina University, providing more hands-on training for future cybersecurity and digital forensics professionals.

A ceremony celebrating the lab was held on Jan. 25 during a graduate-level mobile forensics class being taught in the space by industry expert and new Salve faculty Brandon Catalan.

Catalan, who has worked in digital forensics, cyber intelligence, network exploitation and information security for 10 years, said the university’s goal is to have everything in the lab mimic what’s in the real world.

Thanks to a $45,000 Homeland Security grant, Salve is in the process of purchasing new FRED machines (Forensic Recovery of Evidence Device), which are work stations that will allow students to image multiple hard drives at once quickly. Catalan said these machines are being used in large companies “that have millions of dollars to devote to cybersecurity and digital forensics.”

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“What the students are going to come in here and learn, the software that they’re going to learn on, the hardware that they’re going to learn on, they can automatically and instantaneously transition over to an employer right when they walk out these doors,” he said in a statement.

The lab, part of the university’s Administration of Justice department, features 24 computer monitors, a projector and screen, and a dedicated server room that runs proprietary industry software, including equipment from Cellebrite, an Israeli company.

According to Bloomberg, the FBI worked with Cellebrite to crack the iPhone used by one of the two people involved in the December 2015 San Bernardino, Calif., medical center shooting that killed 14 people.

Salve Regina said it is one of two higher educational institutions in New England – and the only in Rhode Island – to be named an official Cellebrite partner.

Catalan said he views the lab as something from which all Salve students can benefit, not just cyber students. Law, health care administration, insurance, public policy and international relations are some of the other areas that can benefit, he said.

The lab, which operates completely separately from the university’s network, will include cyberattack simulations. Internet protective and detective systems will be studied. Digital forensics analysis, capable of being upheld in a court of law, also will be part of the instruction.

“We can offer students the ability to work on real cases – real law enforcement cases, real terror threat cases,” Catalan said. “We want to be able to carve out a classified environment for government research to happen here. That’s down the road, but beginning with this space, the tools we have right now, with the momentum we have with enrollment and new faculty, I think it’s going to happen a lot sooner than later.”

Salve Regina’s ADJ program offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in administration of justice and homeland security, as well as an undergraduate minor and certificates of graduate study. Concentrations such as juvenile justice, digital forensics, cybersecurity and intelligence are available.

Salve Regina was the first academic institution in the United States to require all of its MBA students to take a cybersecurity course for managers.
This fall, all in the Healthcare Administration program will be required to take a cybersecurity course as part of their master’s degree.

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