Zayed University and AccessData Collaborate to Promote Cyber Security and Digital Forensics Learning among Students

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – June 21, 2012 – Zayed University, a leading United Arab Emirates (UAE) government educational institution and AccessData Group, a pioneer of digital investigations and litigation support, have announced a joint collaboration in an effort to raise awareness and the standard of education in the area of digital forensics and cyber security. To commemorate the partnership and in recognition of AccessData’s support for the University’s initatives in this field, AccessData was awarded with a prestigious ‘Friend of Zayed University’ certificate.

In an event that took place at the University campus on the 21st of June, 2012 attended by a large number of government and commercial sector attendees, AccessData unveiled its revolutionary Forensic Toolkit® 4.0 (FTK®) as part of the company’s official 52 city global launch. One of AccessData’s local partners will be donating academic licences of the product to equip and modernise the University’s digital forensics laboratory. Students will have the opportunity to gain hands-on experience with the software as part of their Masters programme in Digital Forensics. AccessData is looking to recruit graduates from the University on completion of the course and place them in relevant projects across the region as part of the collaboration.

Speaking at the event, Geoff Brooks, Regional Sales Manager, Middle East, Africa and India at AccessData said, “The Middle East has seen cyber crime increase at an alarming rate in recent times. These sophisticated and malicious attacks can have a crippling effect on organizations as well as the country as a whole when directed towards critical national infrastructure. We believe that by aligning with leading educational institutions like Zayed University and by helping educate the country’s next generation of business professionals and leaders in the latest cyber security technologies, we can contribute to reducing the impact of cyber crime in the long term. We want students to have the right skills once they graduate and be proficient in working with industry standard cyber security tools like FTK”.

AccessData has been present in the Middle East since 2010, and is the only vendor to offer digital forensic solutions for static, volatile and network data. FTK is recognized around the world as the standard in computer forensics software with its intuitive interface, email analysis, customizable data views and stability. The all-in-one solution allows users to process a wide range of data types from forensic images to email archives; analyze the registry; conduct an investigation; decrypt files; crack passwords; create images and build reports. AccessData offers two expansion modules with the new version—Cerberus, a malware triage technology that provides threat scores and disassembly analysis to determine both the behaviour and intent of suspect binaries, without a hash library and Vizualization for relationship analysis in multiple display formats, including timelines, cluster graphs, pie charts and more.

“Zayed University is a pioneer in the area of digital forensics in the Middle East as we established the first ‘Advanced Cyber Forensics Research Laboratory’ in the Middle East in 2010, which was innagurated by his H.H. Sheikh Saif, the Minister of Interior. We continue to publish research findings in top conferences and journals worldwide. Since the inception of the Advanced Cyber Forensics Research Laboratory, we have been able to educate students in the area of digital forensics that work in both private and public sectors. As we continue to produce bleeding edge research in this domain, it is critical that we align ourselves with companies like AccessData so we can use their tools to teach our students the applied fundamentals in digital forensics, as well as conduct scientific experiments in this domain. It is critical that as neutral academics we bridge the gap between private and public sector, and this is what is taking place at this event – a marriage between academia and private sector,” concluded Dr. Ibrahim Baggili, Assistant Professor and Director of the Advanced Cyber Forensics Research Laboratory at Zayed University.

About Zayed University
Zayed University is an educational centre of excellence in an emerging and evolving nation. Proudly bearing the name of the founder of the nation – the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan – it stands for innovation, inspiration, and education. The University was founded for UAE National women in 1998, with campuses in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Today, the University is educating more than 7,121 male and female students from 19 countries to compete and thrive in a global environment at the following campuses: Abu Dhabi - Khalifa City B, Dubai – Al Ruwayyah, and Dubai – Knowledge Village.
Accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, the University's programs are recognized internationally as coming from a quality assured university. More information is available on the university website http://www.zu.ac.ae

About AccessData
AccessData Group has pioneered computer forensics and litigation support for more than 20 years. Over that time, the company has grown to provide a broad spectrum of stand-alone and enterprise-class solutions that enable digital investigations of any kind, including computer forensics, incident response, eDiscovery, legal review, IP theft, compliance auditing and information assurance. Its AD eDiscovery product, which is built on the industry-leading Forensic Toolkit® (FTK®) technology, is an automated, in-house solution that addresses the left half of the EDRM model. It enables litigation hold, identification, collection and preservation, processing and de-duplication, ECA and first-pass review, and then generates a load file for common third-party review tools. AccessData's award-winning AD Summation legal review technology addresses the right half of the EDRM model and is the gold standard throughout the legal community, having received more than 45 legal industry technology and “Reader’s Choice” awards since 1997. More than 100,000 users rely on AccessData. From desktop and server applications, to hosted solutions, AccessData combines its innovative technology with market-leading expertise to provide the decisive advantage for Governments, Militaries, Businesses and Law Firms and Legal Departments, large or small.

More information is available on the company website http://www.accessdata.com

Product Contact
Geoff Brooks
AccessData Group
Tel: +971 (50) 6527659
Email: gbrooks@accessdata.com

Media Contact:
Colin Saldanha
Procre8
Villa 41, 81-d Street, Uptown Mirdif
P.O. Box 78835,
Dubai, United Arab Emirates

This release was published on openPR.