# Digital Forensics and Incident Investigation for Federal Employees Course (Self-Paced)

Canonical URL: <https://www.graduateschool.edu/courses/digital-forensics-incident-investigation-federal-employees-self-paced>

## Overview

This course builds the skills federal employees need to conduct sound digital forensics and incident investigations — not just to detect that something happened, but to prove what, when, and how, defensibly. It's built around the NIST SP 800-86 forensic process (Collection, Examination, Analysis, Reporting), integrated with IOC investigation, chain of custody, and the federal legal/oversight framework (Federal Rules of Evidence, OIG/counsel coordination, ISO/IEC 27037 and 27041-43, SWGDE). It ends with a full capstone investigation. This course also counts toward the Digital Forensics & Incident Response certificate, which rolls into the Cyber Operations Professional credential.

## What you'll learn

- Apply the NIST SP 800-86 forensic process and connect it to the NIST SP 800-61 IR lifecycle.
- Recognize the legal/policy foundations for federal digital evidence, and know when to refer to OIG/counsel/law enforcement.
- Collect and preserve evidence by order of volatility (memory, disk, network, cloud) without contaminating it.
- Investigate IOCs across host/network/behavioral data to establish scope and build a timeline.
- Reconstruct timelines and correlate artifacts, understanding the limits of what forensic evidence can prove.
- Maintain a defensible chain of custody and write findings for technical, executive, and legal audiences.

## Curriculum

#### Module 1

The Importance of Forensics & Investigation

#### Module 2

Federal Forensic Standards & Legal Foundations

#### Module 3

Forensic Readiness & Evidence Handling

#### Module 4

Evidence Collection & Acquisition

#### Module 5

Indicators of Compromise: Identification & Analysis

#### Module 6

Forensic Analysis Techniques

#### Module 7

Investigation Documentation, Reporting & Chain of Custody

#### Module 8

Best Practices, Quality Assurance & Capstone Investigation (75m)

## Pricing

**Tuition:** $1049