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Do's and don'ts of building a forensics workstation
This article is part of the Information Security issue of April 2002
Some months ago, I survived yet another round of layoffs at a struggling dot-com. With the writing so clearly on the wall, I decided it was time to pick up new skills. My interest in infosecurity drew me to computer forensics. A firm believer in hands-on learning, I set out to build a forensics workstation from the desktop up and to learn as much as possible about what makes a "best-of-breed" station. With little experience in such a project, I turned to the forensics list on SecurityFocus. Armed with advice from the list, I set about building my box. Building a workstation from scratch has some distinct advantages, not the least of which is ensuring that you have all the right hardware and software. However, as a practical matter, I opted to take an existing box -- I had a bunch of reasonably fast Dells at my disposal -- and modify it. Typical add-ons for forensics systems include a read-write CD drive, a tape drive, extra memory and removable drive bays. IDE drives are most common, but a SCSI controller can come in handy for ...
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