computer forensic examinations Archives

Investments aren’t always Investments

We have all thought “What would have happened….if”, and never gave it a second thought. But in our business, we never wonder “what would have happened” we think “what did happen”. We had a Client whose best friend recommended an unusual investment opportunity to her. She had dabbled in gold dust outside of the US, specifically in Africa with a small Investment Company out of California and had some pretty good returns. She had been bragging about getting a 35% return on her initial investment of $20,000 and then a 20% return on her second investment as well. When she received her second check, she was asked if she knew anybody who would be interested in turning their dollars into gold, and of course she [...]

Forensic Computer Analysis Can Uncover What’s Lurking Inside

Carrying cards instead of cash, well, it used to make us feel a bit safer. But no longer. Credit card theft has been a long-time problem, but now the thieves are using a new avenue and it puts businesses as well as consumers at risk. Several employees at the county courthouse in the northern Texas town of McKinney discovered that their credit card information had been compromised after they had had lunch at a local restaurant. The thief wasn’t an unscrupulous employee or patron who made purchases using their credit card information, it was a hacker. That’s right, a hacker got into the restaurant’s computer system and lifted the customer’s information. This is just part of an alarming trend in hackers infiltrating small business systems. [...]

Are You Being Proactive about Cyber Attacks in Your Small Business?

Small business owners have another growing trend to be concerned with in today’s online marketplace. Symantec reported that 30% of cyber attacks targeted small businesses. Not every cyber attack has to do with malicious threats or activities against a specific business or business owner. The fact is that some hackers simply want to cause a disruption for someone, somewhere. As forensics consultants, has seen a growing number of small business owners invest in computer forensic services as a regular expense of operations. This might fly in the face of what we talk about mostly – the use of spyware and malware to stalk or monitor the activities of others, but malware can also infect systems and networks and create complete upheaval – just for fun. [...]