Reduce Business Risk with Digital Forensic Preparedness

By taking a multifaceted approach to digital forensic preparedness, you can confidently conduct business in a state of perpetual incident readiness. Blend physical, technical, and administrative operations to prepare for the potential need for digital evidence. Continual collection and documentation are key here. Internal and external threat actors pose a significant risk to any organization, no matter the industry or size. While a company may have processes and procedures in place to limit unauthorized users from accessing electronic data, there are clear ways in which you can proactively accumulate evidence to assist in limiting the scope of an inevitable forensic investigation. Unless you have an unlimited amount of time and money, considering everything in scope is not a feasible or efficient use of computer forensic investigators. Being prepared ahead of time will significantly reduce the cost of a potential investigation and help steer the investigator in the right direction.

• Determine the different ways in which an unauthorized user can physically and technically obtain information from your organization. Use the results of a tabletop exercise to execute countermeasures for generating/gathering potential digital evidence. IT professionals should consider requiring procedures in place to identify all data sources; continually monitor network traffic, maintain encryption keys, cloud backups, authentication logs, electronic communication channels, etc.
   
• Establish and maintain internal policies that employees and contractors adhere to/waive their right to privacy when conducting business on business-owned and issued laptops, cell phones, or any other electronic device issued by the company. This makes it clear to the individuals within an organization that computer conduct is subject to being monitored/seized for evidentiary value
   
• Be familiar with your third-party vendor agreements and how they maintain and store data. It is likely at some point you will need to extract information that is stored on a cloud-based service. Cloud service providers can address the ways in which data is stored and its availability to your organization as evidentiary value
   
• Compliance differs from each organization with respect to industry specific regulatory standards. Maintain the most recent up to date records outlining how requirements are met, specific to the jurisdiction, if necessary

These are just a few key points to consider when implementing processes and practices for any organization interested in highlighting their ability to successfully oversee business risk. Not only will your clients and employees feel safer and supported, you will reduce the overall costs associated with forensic investigations and assist the examiners ability to refine the search and focus on the context of the incident. Contact us today to learn more and discuss your unique digital forensics situation!