Neural Newscast

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Neural Newscast. I am Isabel Moreno. And I am Sophia Bennett. You know, Isabel, today we're taking a look inside a facility that, honestly, well, it operates almost entirely out of the public eye. But its work is so fundamental to the integrity of the Department of Defense and, really, to the safety of our entire digital infrastructure. Right. We are talking about the DC-3 Cyber Forensics Lab. And I think most people, even some folks working inside the Pentagon, might not even realize that this team has been quietly operating for 27 years now. They are essentially the digital detectives for the Department of Defense. They handle everything from criminal investigations to major high-stakes data recovery operations. Yeah, exactly. Kevin Rivera, who's the director of the lab, he recently shared some really fascinating insights into what their mission actually looks like day-to-day. He explained that they primarily support the defense criminal investigative organizations. So when a crime involves a member of the DOD or impacts the department directly, this lab, well, this is where all that digital evidence goes. It really changes how we think about a crime scene, doesn't it? I mean, in the past, investigators were looking for physical fingerprints or shell casings. But today, they're seizing tablets, gaming systems, and mobile phones. Rivera's team looks at these devices to find tiny digital artifacts that either support or refute criminal allegations. It's this incredibly meticulous process of finding the digital needle in a truly massive haystack of data. The technical prowess required here is just staggering. One of their most impressive specialties, at least to me, is how they recover data from hardware that is literally damaged or failing. Rivera mentioned a recent case involving a server with eight drives and 800 terabytes of data. The server had failed, and 40 terabytes of that data was mission critical and completely non-replaceable. Yeah, I was struck by the time frame of that recovery too. They had to troubleshoot the hardware, identify every single failing part, and then reconstruct the data. Yeah. And they did all of that in just three weeks. It really highlights that they aren't just software experts. They are essentially surgeons for computer hardware. Mm-hmm. And that expertise extends into cybersecurity and the defense industrial base as well. They perform malware reverse engineering. So if a defense contractor gets hit with an intrusion, the DC-3 lab helps identify exactly where the attack originated and how that initial point of entry was compromised. It is such a vital layer of protection for our national security interests. What is truly sobering, though, is the scale of the change they have seen. Rivera has been with the lab for nearly 20 years now. He noted that back in the early 2000s, they were mostly just analyzing single hard drives. But now, as we move into 2026, Every person is carrying a powerful computer right in their pocket. Totally. The volume of data has increased by, well, literal orders of magnitude. A single investigation now often involves correlating activity across multiple devices, you know, a phone, a laptop, and maybe even cloud accounts. to attribute specific actions to an offender. It is no longer just about one device. It is about a whole digital ecosystem of evidence. It is clear that the mission of the DC3 Cyber Forensics Lab is only going to grow in complexity as the volume of digital artifacts continues to explode. their work ensures that even in a world of encrypted and damaged data, justice can still be served. They really are a crucial, silent partner in our national defense. Well, thank you so much for joining us for this deep dive today. This has been Neural Newscast. I am Isabel Marino. And I am Sophia Bennett. We will see you in the next episode. Neural Newscast is AI-assisted, human-reviewed. View our AI transparency policy at neuralnewscast.com.