Computer Forensics

Theft of intellectual property, recovery of deleted information, suspicious events, and computer security breaches – each of these topics are critical components of litigation and incident response.  Application of forensically sound methodologies for evidence collection, handling, and analysis for each of these activities requires experience and attention to detail.  The iDS team has a breadth of expertise in assisting its clients with the collection and analysis of forensic evidence on cases both large and small.  We are regularly called upon to author expert reports and provide trial testimony on the most complex forensic issues.  Further, our team members are experienced authors having published textbooks and articles on computer forensics and electronic discovery.  

Best Practices. Corporations and legal teams are often faced with the inability to identify the basic details that are critical in supporting investigations, government inquiries and lawsuits. While some companies have developed their own internal security and computer forensic teams, many have not, and are forced to engage outside experts. iDS’ team of former corporate, SEC and litigation discovery investigators offers a complete suite of computer forensic solutions, ranging from evidence preservation and collection to expert reporting. Throughout an investigation, iDS offers:

• Development of a defensible plan for identification and preservation of key evidence
• Forensically sound (bit-by-bit or logical) acquisition of hard drives, mobile devices, external media, and storage areas
• Analysis of system settings to identify potential sources of computer manipulation
• Recovery of deleted and/or overwritten files, folders, and email messages
• Analysis of internet activity, including web sites visited, webmail activity or downloaded materials
• Email conversation index and histogram analysis
• Data authentication, including date and time verification for “create,” “modified” or “accessed” metadata
• Identification of any prior connected devices as possible sources of relevant evidence
• Ability to crack password-protected files to uncover previously unavailable information
• Detailed system and file metadata analysis
• Recovery of financial records and associated transactions
• Identification and analysis of instant messaging and chat sessions

The Benefits of Forensic Analysis. We’ve assisted our clients with a number of different types of cases, including employment, theft of intellectual property, embezzlement, insider trading and securities matters. iDS will work with your team to identify deleted or seemingly missing information, real or suspected adverse events, nefarious data transmissions, and actual event timing.  Our expertise allows us to help clients navigate the following scenarios: 

• Data is often overlooked as part of the traditional e-discovery processing cycle as it may be a processing exception, password-protected, corrupt, or encrypted.  iDS will work with you to identify and analyze data that traditional e-discovery processing can’t handle.
• Data that is not readily available is not useful unless it’s uncovered. iDS will find data critical  to your team, allowing you to make a fully informed decisions on merits and strategy.
• Timeline analysis is often overlooked, as it is time consuming. However, timelines provide useful means regarding the overall activities performed by a user or multiple users. iDS will work with your team to determine which components of a timeline are most meaningful to you.