Stephen Boyce, former FBI, on the Magnet Digital Investigation Suite

How did you get your start with Magnet?

My name is Stephen Boyce and I am the Director for Magnet Digital Investigation Suite. I joined Magnet 
after six and a half years in the Federal Government working for agencies of the U.S. State Department as well as the FBI.

Major challenges facing law enforcement agencies.

Some of the major challenges impacting law enforcement agencies as it relates to digital investigations is the growing storage that individuals/organizations have in their daily life. You look at the average storage capacity of a cell phone we’re well past 100GB now and multiply that by maybe two, or three, or four per person when we talk about smartphones, tablets, and computers.

Magnet Digital Investigation Suite.

MDIS is Magnet Digital Investigation Suite, and it’s comprised of ATLAS, our chain of custody and case management tool, AUTOMATE, our automation and orchestration tool, and REVIEW, our agency-wide collaboration and review platform.

What makes MDIS unique?

Starting with ATLAS, you start the case, you then use some automation and orchestration in order to process your case, and then you review that in Magnet REVIEW, whether that’s for translation, whether that’s for investigators who have a subject matter expert. Being able to provide that customer service to our stakeholders and seeing the entire digital forensic life cycle in the ecosphere.

Leveraging Magnet REVIEW as an early adopter.

We really leveraged Magnet REVIEW in the early days when there were critical incidents and there were hundreds of analysts around the country and world helping us dig through these digital clues which allowed us to be able better analyze and collaborate across many miles.

The London Metropolitan Police.

A key customer using MDIS today is the London Metropolitan Police. By leveraging Magnet REVIEW, in collaboration with Microsoft Azure, the London Metropolitan has allowed their investigators and analysts to cross-collaborate across their agency in reviewing digital evidence.