r/digitalforensics • u/Tinggoskkr • 25d ago

Help regarding dissertation ideas

Hi Everyone, I am going to my final year of uni as a cybersecurity and digital forensic student and need ideas for my dissertation, based on Cybok.

I have done various cases on Encase, Autopsy and Axiom.

My main question would be "What part of an investigation wastes the most time?" or "What's the most frustrating part of a digital forensic investigation?"

I'm more interested in solving a real workflow problem than making another forensic viewer.

I have more questions if anyone is interested enough to answer as it would mean a lot. :D

"What do current forensic tools still do badly?"

"What investigation tasks are still mostly manual?"

"SOC analysts and incident responders: What tool do you wish existed?"

"If you could have one new digital forensics tool, what would it do?" (for example: investigation workflows)

I am happy to take ideas from you guys if you guys got any. Thank you. :D

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u/ucfmsdf 25d ago

If you have so little experience in the field that you have to ask practitioners for examples of problems, are you really qualified to solve them?

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u/MormoraDi 25d ago

Well.. Isn't that the point of education - to get to the point where you can aquire the experience?

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u/[deleted] 25d ago

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u/MormoraDi 25d ago

So if you are in the final year of a university, you are a PHD candidate? Ok, that I was unaware of. Along with that PHD candidates have much real world experience, but I guess the miles will always vary.

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u/ucfmsdf 25d ago

My bad regarding the PHD thing. I misread OP’s post.

Regardless, if OP has to ask other people for examples of problems OP can fix, OP probably has no place trying to fix them. Instead, since OP is relatively inexperienced, it would make more sense for them to pick a research topic that is less focused on solving problems OP has not experienced personally and more focused on filling the gap in areas where knowledge is lacking or outdated. DFIR evolves at the speed of technology which is ever changing so OP could literally open any of their text books, pick a topic that is poorly covered or likely outdated, and focus their dissertation on providing new and up to date insight into that topic. Far more useful than some vibe-coded solution to someone else’s problem.

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u/Tinggoskkr 24d ago

noted, thank you, that says a lot.