Computer Forensics: It’s Not Just for Law Enforcement and Legal Discovery Anymore
Businesses are being faced with an ever increasing need
for Computer Forensic support. Anytime
digital evidence may be used to support a corporation’s myriad HR challenges,
the imaging and analysis needs to be done completely and correctly, based upon
methods from organizations like the International Society of Forensic Computer
Examiners.
Business owners and executives know that employees are distracted by the
many vices of the internet and looking over an employee’s shoulder may be the
first step towards an internal disciplinary hearing. However, the issues may be deeper, hidden on
the desktop hard drive. Further compounding the problem are data breaches and security problems that hit businesses on a daily basis. Forensic analysis
of network information, rogue software, and employee carelessness may uncover
root causes averting potentially disastrous consequences.
Businesses try to implement policies and procedures, but they are not enough to
control the use and abuse of a companies IT infrastructure. This is when professional forensic support is
required. A Computer
Forensic Examiner is capable of reconstructing past events and activity that
occurred on an employee’s computer, protecting the company and its intellectual
assets.
The "Cloud" as we know it only complicates matters further. Computer Forensic Examiners must now deal with elastic or fluid environments of services and applications in the cloud. Data stored and accessed by employees can be between servers, data centers, or across boarders. The new breed of Forensic Examiners are redefining themselves as quickly as the cloud adapts to new services. Are forensic applications capable of keeping up? Can the contain the "cloud-based" investigation? Will new methods, procedures, and services adapt? The time to look at these issues is here and now.
