An employee was accused of distributing sexual explicit material via e-mail to other employees. Digital Disclosure conducted a covert forensic investigation and discovered that the employee was innocent, and had been wrongly accused. The employer was then able to deal appropriately with the accuser.
The HR manager in a company was concerned that a particular employee seemed to be spending excessive amounts of time using the Internet for personal use. Digital Disclosure conducted a covert forensic examination of the employee’s work PC and discovered that the employee was spending almost 50% of their working day on various social networking sites. With the evidence that was found, the employer was able to take appropriate action against the employee.
Employee Computer Misuse
The owner of a small business had accidently deleted some promotional photographs and Digital Disclosure was asked to recover them. During the process of recovering the photographs, pornographic images were found. The business owner asked Digital Disclosure to find out how these images came to be on the PC. A forensic examination of the PC revealed that an employee had been downloading pornography without the business owner’s knowledge. Armed with this knowledge the business owner took action against the employee.
Theft of Company Data
When an employee handed in their notice the employer suspected they were leaving to start a rival company that would be in direct competition with the employer’s company. The employer was concerned that the employee had been stealing customer data for the employee to use in their new company. Digital Disclosure was asked to examine the employee’s computer to ascertain whether or not the employer’s suspicions were justified. Our examination showed that the employer’s suspicions were completely justified as the employee had been stealing customer data. The employer was then able to take appropriate action.
Identity Theft Risk
The hard drive of a computer can contain a lot of personal information – more than enough to allow your identity to be stolen. Digital Disclosure conducted an experiment to find out just how much of that information someone would be prepared to give away or sell for a small sum of money. A hard drive was purchased for £5, off a popular online auction site. The seller stated that all of the data had been deleted and the hard drive had been formatted. We used our skills and tools to discover:
• The seller’s name, address and date of birth
• The names of the members of the seller’s immediate family
• The seller’s bank account details
• The seller’s credit card details
• User names and passwords
• Personal email
And other personal details.
If the hard drive had been purchased by a criminal they would have had enough information to steal the seller’s identity and commit fraud. This demonstrates the need to ensure that your data is destroyed properly before getting rid of your hard drive.