In the digital age, the majority of business is conducted on a computer. Likewise, a good portion of employee misconduct can also occur on an employee’s computer. When an employee is accused of inappropriate conduct over email or through Internet use, a computer forensic investigation may be necessary to assess the full scope of the incident.Other cases that require computer forensics may involve disgruntled employees intentionally deleting data or sabotaging systems or equipment.  Computer forensic investigations can retrieve maliciously deleted data and trace the activity of the employee behind the incident for any necessary legal recourse.

EON-PeaceConsult Forensics is able to perform computer forensic analysis and investigation for criminal cases. In many cases, the crime being investigated is conducted on a computer, leaving most of the evidence contained on a desktop or laptop computer. Computer crimes such as fraud, forgery or identity theft leave a trail of evidence that forensic investigation can uncover. Even crimes conducted outside of the digital world, including drug investigations or homicides, can be assisted by forensic analysis of a suspect’s computer to find a variety of information relevant to the case.

In many industries, regulations govern the retention policies of important data. Especially in the healthcare and financial industries, data stored on employees’ computers can contain sensitive information and require secure archiving after an employee is no longer using a device. For this reason, computer forensic analysis of the contents of an employee’s device may be necessary as part of the exit process at the end of an employee’s tenure. Proper decommissioning of equipment should include a full forensic report of the data stored on a device and whether any suspicious activity took place prior to the employee’s departure.

When employees leave a company and take data with them, it can cause huge problems for a company looking to protect trade secrets and intellectual property. Whether the ex-employee intends to use the information to form their own competing entity, or to provide the data to an existing competitor, cases of industrial espionage and data exfiltration are both common occurrences where computer forensic services can be employed.