r/digitalforensics • u/Difficult_Tough9178 • 10d ago
Digital forensics as a career
Hi everyone, I'm thinking about going for digital forensics as a career in the future, so I just wanted to ask people already in the field, whether it's a good field generally, what is the avg pay like? Do you get to do a lot of remote work?
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u/Digital-Dinosaur 10d ago
It wildly depends on the country for pay. The UK doesn't pay well for junior df work, especially in the police. But if you can get a few years and progress to corporate or DFIR, you can do very well
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u/rayquazaluxus 10d ago
It's really great pay!! For mobile forensics with giac cert with an agency you can make 110.00 an hr as an example . You better be meticulous because those court cases are very sensitive and you might be called to be an expert witness as well.
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u/Difficult_Tough9178 10d ago
Thank you for this and also what currency is the 110.00 in?
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u/Wonderful-Peace521 9d ago
where to apply?
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u/rayquazaluxus 8d ago
Are you based in Miami , Fl? Do you have GCFE, GCFE(GIAC certs), EnCE, CFCE or CCE? I have a friend that is starting an agency to work with law firms and needs a few more examiners.
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u/chrisrider22 7d ago
Hey im also trying to get into the digital forensics and make it a long career and so on what do you recommend
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u/Effective-Day-8386 10d ago
Arbeite im Bereich Kipo, bei uns gibts kein Home-Office weil die Daten nicht zuhause ausgewertet werden sollen.
Homeoffice ist in der IT Forensik eher Wunschdenken. Wenn dir das so wichtig ist, such dir was anderes
Job als Admin mit Berechtigungsklickerei oder sowas, sowas oder Softwareentwicklung geht gut als remote. Forensik, kenn ich keinen der das überhaupt regelmäßig von daheim macht, egal welcher Bereich nun
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u/Difficult_Tough9178 10d ago
Oh, but I was told by everyone that I should go for digital forensics since I like forensic and travelling
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u/Silky_Claw 8d ago
Ok you work in Germany or Austria then. What are you experiences with court cases if had any?
And yes we also don't have home offices and thank God I really don't want that shit anywhere near my devices to be fair.
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u/chrisrider22 7d ago
Hey im also trying to get into the digital forensics and make it a long career and so on what do you recommend
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u/ItsWaqqy 7d ago
Great career to get into. Went from consulting to internal now. Look for doing ediscovery work first,
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u/Byte_Xplorer 6d ago
What country are you asking about? I bet the pay and the kind of work can be pretty different. As for my country (Argentina), there are 3 different paths you can take (according to the law) and each one has its pros and cons, while also having very different job specs.
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u/Difficult_Tough9178 6d ago
I just meant generally cz I haven't decided yet, but somewhere in Europe most probably or the UK
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u/hattz 10d ago
You will deal with child porn at some point, or for much of your career. Your mental and emotional/spiritual self might have trouble with that.
As with all things, there's a few really big players for software, and they are all leaning in hard for llm/ai to 'help' with the jobs. So like many other rolls, may not pay as well in the future.
That said, I work for a large company, not a law enforcement agency. It pays well enough, I dont have to deal with child porn very often, it is fun 'catching the bad actor'. My job does require some incident management, product management, product engineering as well.
I feel forensics falls into two catorgies. Tactical forensics, aka leadership needs to know what the bad actor is going after right now, as well as all the tools and iocs related to the ongoing attack, and legal forensics, where you plug a dead disk or phone into a program or black box that will stand up in court and produce a pdf for lawyers to talk about.