WF wrote:
There were literally no opportunities in my country to get in the field.
The US and the UK seem to be the hot spots for forensic services -- I suspect, at least partly due to the form the judicial process takes. If you have a jury who decides, the legal argument seem to be done in a somewhat different way than if there is a panel of professional judges to convince.
Where I am, it's much as you describe: law enforcement and closely related fields are the main employers, along with some major companies and professional services, and while there are a few freelancers, they usually have a fairly solid background in LE or data recovery.
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I think I'll go ahead and pursue a masters degree in computer science and take it from there. I discovered that I'm the kind of guy that likes one challenging problem and diving into it, learning as I go, and focus on it to the point that I can't hear anything or notice anyone around me. I thought I would make a really good investigator, but I think I would also be good at programming, or research.
That's more or less where I started: programming. After a while I got the job to manage Internet security in a telecom field test, and since then it has been penetration tests, web application security tests etc. that forms the main part of my job. That led to some work in information security and quality-related jobs (ISO2001, etc.) Then, as a consequence of the security testing, I began to do computer intrusion examinations, and as a consequence of *that* I began doing 'normal' CF jobs.
That, of course, puts me squarely in the CSIRT forensics camp. I'm probably deluding myself, but I have the feeling that going the long way and collecting a lot of computer-related baggage has a number of benefits over what seems to be the 'usual' CF education.
That is, you can probably find spots where CF still is a valuable area of expertise, but you may have to refocus on computer or information security. (I see others have made similar suggestions.)
Good luck for the future!
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