My practicum experience was at ADF Solutions, a cybersecurity company focused on digital forensics. Personally, I found this internship by applying to everything I could find and asking everyone I knew if they knew of any internships open anywhere. Finding a practicum internship was the hardest part of the practicum process. My advice, for any Computer Science SGC students, is to apply to anything that sounds remotely interesting. Personally, I applied to over one hundred internships, and this was the only one that accepted me. I found a better response rate at smaller companies compared to the traditional FAANG companies (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google) my peers would strive for.
Personally, my main task I performed was generating and collecting digital artifacts, then compiling my findings for each application I did this for on an Apple phone. Mainly, I examined messaging apps, but there were a few notes-esque apps that I produced digital artifacts for. SQL files were isolated and saved, with the path to them featured in the summary. These files contained objects like: texts, location and/or file names of images/videos/GIFs, timestamp of messages, hyperlinks, audio files, etc.. Depending on the application and how secure it is, these artifacts are harder or easier to find.
While at first glance, there is no science involved in this internship, it took the principles of science and the basics of research to successfully complete. From this experience, I learned how to investigate mobile devices and how to analyze results. There are a lot of files that may seem important but will have no impact. There was a lot of trial and error. And if something seemed like a pattern, we would have to make sure it was repeatable. Once we knew this pattern was repeatable, it would be noted. The SQL code was very helpful in easing the process of analysing multiple columns of information and sorting everything.
After this internship, I found a new appreciation for app security and data privacy. There is a lot of information we share on a daily basis. Everytime we send a text, we can be sending out our exact location, with longitude and latitude saved. My VPN has been turned on almost every day since finishing this internship. Protect yourself online! Twitter is a scary place. I also found out that Apple phones are much harder to jailbreak (modifying a device to remove any protections to download any authorized programs) than Android phones. Until that changes, for my own basic cyber safety, I will only be using Apple phones.
Thankfully, this practicum has given me another summer internship. I will be returning to ADF Solutions for a summer internship in 2025. Without this experience, I do not know how I would have been able to get another year of experience under my belt and on my resume. This practicum experience exposed me towards general research skills that will be invaluable to me down the road, and has given me a taste of what working for a smaller company looks like in the field of Digital Forensics.
Depending on how the next few years go, I am considering completing the 5th year masters program featured at the University of Maryland, in our Computer Science program. You can never have too much knowledge in a topic, in my opinion. Perhaps after that, I could get a PhD. I want as many options to be open to me as possible. Ultimately, that is my goal. To have options and to be knowledgeable. But honestly, I'm excited to start working (at least in a collaborative environment).