The world has been moving toward a fully connected workplace model for years, even prior to COVID-19. Now, understanding your company’s digital presence – and footprint – is more important than ever. Everything you or your employees do online could have lasting consequences for you, your employees, and your brand.
Digital forensics provides you with a concrete, analytical way to investigate personnel claims and provide the necessary evidence to properly assess internal issues.
Learn how these tools can completely transform the way you do business while providing your company with an extra layer of security and protection in the event of a legal battle.
What is digital forensics?
Whenever an employee files a claim against someone else or is otherwise part of an internal investigation, evidence is the key to a just and speedy resolution. Digital forensics gives you a way to collect and analyze digital information that can be applied to the case.
Everything we do online leaves a trace, from keystrokes and passwords to the exact time we access a file or make changes to a document. These breadcrumbs can be used to add validity to personnel claims and accusations, while also simplifying the investigation process and reducing human error.
Collecting and tracking online data like emails, search history, and browser usage is essential for handling any level of investigation in 2020. We use our connected devices constantly, and most of our daily communications are likely made in some digital format.
Digital forensics is made of four main components:
- Computer Forensics: Analyzing data found on computers and digital storage devices. This includes hard drives, USBs, and portable drives.
- Network Forensics: Monitoring computer network traffic for company or legal investigations.
- Forensic Data Analysis: Examining structured data to investigate financial crime incidents
- Mobile Device Forensics: Recovering data as digital evidence from a mobile device.
Depending on the circumstances of the investigation, an analyst will choose the most appropriate option for each individual situation. Creating a personalized solution will give you the best results when it comes to response time and the overall efficacy of your digital forensics system.
What is digital forensics software?
In the current tech-heavy age, there are a plethora of ways to make internal investigations and fraud claims a breeze with specialized software.
Digital forensics software uses cutting-edge user activity monitoring tools to collect data from computers, systems, and mobile devices. By taking a look at the actions that occurred during the time frame in which the offense took place, analysts can make more accurate conclusions.
Once the data is collected, detailed reports give the user the ability to accurately track each action in an easy-to-digest format.
How is digital forensics used?
Whether the investigation is legal, private, or sensitive, digital forensics is the fastest way to get to the bottom of any noncompliant situation. With an average closing time of 40 days, using comprehensive digital forensics software will help you keep operations running smoothly.
Digital forensics can help you investigate, address, and resolve a variety of incidents including:
- Cyberbullying and harassment
- Fraud
- Intellectual property theft
- Libel/slander
- Compliance violations
- Data breaches
If an incident takes place at your company, you want to make sure that you’re taking every action possible to handle the situation promptly and within the proper policies.
What are the best digital forensics tools?
There are a variety of digital forensics tools on the market, but they don’t all have the features you need to perform an investigation effectively.
When you’re shopping for digital forensics software, look for programs that include monitoring for:
- Chats & IMs
- Emails
- File activity
- Program activity
- Website visited
- Web searches
- Keystrokes typed
- Network activity
In order to achieve the quickest and most reliable results for an internal or external investigation, your software should cover all of your company’s bases.
Track User Activity Discreetly
Overseeing any type of employee investigation can be risky business, and being overly obvious that you’re tracking worker activity can lead to unrest in the workplace.
A successful digital forensics software rollout should be seamless without disrupting office operations.
Capture Screenshots
Additionally, since evidence is the crux of any investigation, keeping a “paper” trail is essential for achieving the most accurate results. Choose a digital forensics program that allows you to capture, archive, and send screenshots.
Visual evidence closes cases; the last thing you want to do is find yourself without the concrete evidence you need to wrap up an ongoing investigation.
Utilize In-Depth Reporting
If an investigation is underway within your organization, no detail is too small or insignificant to track and record. Proper record-keeping during an investigation is absolutely critical, but it can be arduous and time-consuming to keep every single data point in order.
Using digital forensics software makes reporting easy and painless and you can access user data in real-time, from any device.
Whether you want to keep an eye on employee device usage or you need to access a worker’s communications for an ongoing investigation, monitoring software is an essential step to ensuring a seamless process from start to finish.
Keyword Filtering and Analysis
Digital risk prevention is the best way to keep your company, employees, and reputation safe from digital harm. Identifying user behavior based on the keywords they’re using is a great way to stay safe and informed.
Creating activity alerts based on high-risk keywords (such as secret, illegal, “off the books”) will give you the leg up on a potential scandal before any damage is done.
Opt for a computer monitoring system that allows you to identify specific terms or phrases, while also notifying you when specific terms are being used on company devices or networks.
Using a digital forensics system could be the difference between maintaining a spotless public record for your business, or closing your doors for good. Take the headache out of internal investigations, and keep your company in good standing with a fully customizable digital forensics software system.
Insider Risk – How Prepared Are You?
Not every company is equally prepared to deal with insider risk. This report outlines the four stages of insider risk maturity and explores how to improve your insider risk preparedness.
About the author
