What is Computer Forensics?
Computer forensics is more than just e-discovery and data recovery. It is also more than hard drives, computers, and forensic software.
Computer forensics requires specialized expertise and tools that go above and beyond the normal data collection and preservation techniques available to end-users or system support personnel. Computer forensics requires training, the ability to think out-side the box, the ability to investigate and the experience and knowledge of how findings effect and interplay in legal proceedings.
Global CompuSearch is a "full service" consulting firm on computer evidence issues. The firm is often retained at the onset of litigation and assists in everything from obtaining court orders for electronic discovery to examination of the media, to trial consultation and evidence planning, to trial assistance and expert witness testimony to sentencing/verdicts and appeals. In other words, the company assists clients in the technical aspects of litigation involving computer evidence from the inception of their case to its conclusion.
In essence, the company's function is to investigate computer media in a forensically sound manner, extract relevant information for its clients and present that information in an understandable, usable way. Computer Forensics is more than simply data recovery.
This consultation aspect of the company's services coupled with its technical investigative process make Global CompuSearch different from typical data recovery services offered by other firms. Much of what passes as computer forensics in forensics entities devoted only to data recovery, is in fact not investigative in nature at all. A client sends these entities computer media and a technician at the facility extracts what the client asks them to extract. Little to no investigative effort goes into the analysis of the media.
This approach usually leads to overlooked evidence, many times even overlooked evidence that would be extremely important. While a layman might conclude that the technician extracting the data is performing “computer forensics”, in actuality, all they have done is data recovery.
Computer forensics, as that term is applied at Global CompuSearch, is a great deal more than this. More appropriately called computer investigations, when Global CompuSearch receives media to examine, the media is examined within the context of the litigation and clients are informed of everything that is potentially relevant to their case. The company uses the latest and best possible technical tools to investigate the media and determine what occurred, when it occurred, how it occurred and who was responsible for its occurrence. To answer these questions requires not just a working knowledge of data recovery and the technical tools used for this, but a working knowledge of the law, a working knowledge of the Internet, it’s applications, how offenses and torts are committed with these applications, what types of behaviors are associated with which applications and a myriad of related issues.
Perhaps the best way to summarize the company's forensics activity is to say that it brings together the latest in technical forensics tools and applies them in an investigative manner to assist clients, courts and juries in understanding the facts and arriving at decisions in a given case.