Digital forensics and incident response preparedness in Bangladesh is yet to become a focused and well-practised cybersecurity field at government and private entities amid the digital advancement of the country.
Although the government established specialised bodies and enacted various legislation, the actual importance granted to DFIR in daily organisational culture—both in public and private sectors—remains inconsistent.
The establishment of the Bangladesh e-Government Computer Incident Response Team (BGD e-Gov CIRT) under the Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) in 2015-2016 marked a formal recognition of the need for state-led cybersecurity management.
This move was largely reactive, spurred by the 2016 Bangladesh Bank heist, which demonstrated that a lack of centralised response capabilities could lead to catastrophic financial losses.
The Media Landscape: Sensationalism versus Technical Depth
Media coverage of cyber incidents in Bangladesh serves as a bridge between the technical reality of breaches and public perception.
However, research titled ‘A Study on Cybersecurity News Coverage in Bangladeshi Newspapers’ (https://www.revistarazonypalabra.org/index.php/ryp/article/download/1911/1650/6901) shows that most of the news published in Bangladeshi media is event-driven.
Any person interested in technology and data rights would easily find an absence of investigative tech journalism in the country. Most of the cyber incident-related stories are dominated by event-driven sensationalism rather than actual investigative and technical depth.
Tech journalists should also cover the incidents, like what important improvements were found from forensics and incident response, which would create consciousness among organisations, citizens, and authorities concerned as well.
For example, in the follow-up stories of the recent Election Commission data breach of about 14,000 journalists, there are still to come up with the details if there was any actual data breach incident that happened.
The incident caught less media coverage and proper investigation into whether the data went to the wrong hands that might contribute to personal and professional risk of the affected journalists.
Log Management and Sectoral Readiness
Proper server and device log management is the foundation of all digital forensic investigations. But this varies wildly between the highly regulated financial sector and the rest of the economy in Bangladesh.
Log management should be a regulatory mandate in critical public and private organisations, though enforcement and maturity levels remain uneven.
The 2016 Bangladesh Bank heist is the defining case study for log management failures in Bangladesh. Attackers successfully navigated the SWIFT messaging system because the local network lacked a firewall and was unmonitored. Crucially, the attackers deployed malware to tamper with the printer systems and local logs to delay detection. In the aftermath, Bangladesh Bank released the Guideline on ICT Security v4.0 (2023), which emphasises the need for detailed logging, two-factor authentication for SWIFT, and regular security audits.
Despite these guidelines, gaps persist in how IT risk is integrated into corporate governance. While operational mitigation is generally well-covered, there is limited formal integration of IT risk at the board level, and quantitative risk metrics are frequently missing. Moreover, 70% of banks employ fewer than 50 cybersecurity staff, leading to overworked teams that may struggle to manage the massive volume of log data generated by modern banking operations. [https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=147584]
AI and LLMs might be a solution to this, but that still needs a good amount of human intervention.
Telecommunications and Public Sector Log Retention
The Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission established rules for log retention, particularly for Internet Service Providers and mobile operators. The requirement to preserve traffic metadata for at least one year is central to the ability of law enforcement to trace cybercrime.
However, the cost of high-volume log storage can be prohibitive for smaller ISPs, leading to a reliance on cost-effective open-source solutions for compliance.
The ISPs in Bangladesh need to preserve one year of data – six months old and six months live data – of a subscriber that includes the following: Browsing history, IP log details, and bandwidth utilisation, among others.
Data Center Readiness for Post-Incident Response
The physical and logical infrastructure of data centres in Bangladesh is mature, with facilities like Tier III and ISO 27001 certifications. These centres are designed for high availability and physical security, but “forensic readiness”—the ability to support a comprehensive digital investigation following a breach—should also be ensured.
Forensic and Incident Readiness Assessments
Forensic readiness involves Evaluating an organisation’s ability to handle and recover from a cyber incident without losing valuable digital evidence. This includes ensuring that logs are protected from modification and that clear guidelines exist for various incident use cases.
In Bangladesh, the transition from a “reactive” posture to a “proactive” forensic readiness posture is still in its early stages, with many organisations lacking the “incident directives” for comprehensive forensic investigation procedures.
Proper Training of Govt. and Private authorities Concerned
Training must evolve from general awareness to hands-on specialised technical competencies to address the current cyber-skills gap among both government and private sector officials in Bangladesh. Most of the cybersecurity trainings are theoretical and less focused on real-life complex attack scenarios.
While the BGD e-Gov CIRT has successfully trained over 1,800 civil servants, a significant mismatch remains between the academic curriculum and actual industry needs, leaving 70% of banks with fewer than 50 dedicated cybersecurity staff to manage increasingly complex threats. To be effective, training for authorities—including the judiciary and law enforcement—must focus on the technical integrity of digital evidence under the 2022 Evidence Act to ensure that forensic findings are both authentic and admissible in court.
Role of Private DFI and Cyber Investigation Organizations
Private digital forensics and investigation organisations act as essential force multipliers by providing advanced technical capabilities, such as SOC-as-a-Service and real-time threat hunting, helping law agencies and enforcement authorities in solving complex digital forensics problems.
The significance of the private sector was demonstrated during the 2016 Bangladesh Bank heist investigation, where international private firms were instrumental in identifying the specific malware and attributing the attack to the Lazarus Group. Today, local private providers like Cyber Canion offers a vast range of cybersecurity and legal solutions like VAPT and forensic audits, which are critical for maintaining the forensic readiness of the nation’s financial and telecommunications infrastructure.
Author: Ishtiaque Foysol, Security Researcher and Cyber Canion
