In just a few months a new lab at the University of North Texas’s Frisco campus will begin its dual mission: teaching and solving crime.
The school is opening a Cyber Security Lab at the new campus.
Interns, grad students, and eventually major students will work with high tech tools to crack into phones, computers, iPads, and other technology and analyze evidence inside.
It won’t just be theoretical either.
Workers in the lab will actually begin working with departments like the Denton County Sheriff, Dallas Police, and others to help them deal with electronic evidence at crime scenes.
Lab Director Dr. Scott Belshaw said these days such evidence is collected at many, if not most crime scenes, but many departments have backlogs of the evidence to work through.
Often that can take a department between 7 and 10 months to do, he said.
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"So, law enforcement brings us that information, brings us that cell phone or brings us that laptop and our job is to analyze it and get that back to them as quickly as possible so then they can further prosecution,” said Belshaw.
Students will not only get the hands on experience, but also earn necessary certifications to do that kind of work in their careers.
The school hopes to keep evolving the lab to delve further into cyber security issues over time.
Right now, Belshaw hopes to have the first grad student workers in place next semester with a full undergrad program starting next Fall.
