WASHINGTON - On Dec. 23, 2022, President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023. This bill formally reauthorizes the United States Secret Service to continue operating the National Computer Forensics Institute (NCFI) for fiscal years 2023 to 2028.
Under this bill, NCFI’s mission has been enhanced and will now allow the Institute to educate, train, and equip State, local, territorial, and Tribal law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and judges, as well as other government employees who are participants in the U.S. Secret Service’s network of Cyber Fraud Task Forces (CFTF). This bill also authorizes the NCFI to continue providing computer equipment needed to conduct these investigations and examinations to state, local, tribal and territorial law enforcement officers, prosecutors and judges from geographically diverse jurisdictions throughout the United States.
The NCFI is the nation’s only federally funded training center dedicated to instructing state and local officials in network intrusion response, digital evidence, and cybercrime investigations.
In partnership with the State of Alabama District Attorney’s Association, the USSS has operated the NCFI since its opening in 2008, providing training curriculum, instructional coordination, and travel logistics to law enforcement personnel from all 50 states, five U.S. territories, and numerous agencies nationwide.
To date, the NCFI has trained and equipped a total of 23,000 state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement personnel, judges, and prosecutors. More than $100 million in digital forensic equipment has been provided to over 4,000 law enforcement agencies across the nation. NCFI graduates have reported using the training and equipment provided in over 648,000 digital forensic exams involving more than 98,500 terabytes of data.