Theft by employees is a problem for more than retail or restaurant businesses. It is a problem in the office, too. I am talking about more than office supplies and materials here. I am talking about the theft of ideas, processes, client lists and confidential corporate operations. This could include employee embezzlement through accounting or bookkeeping channels from corporate accounts, too.
All of these things constitute theft in the workplace; some just look a little different than others. Instead of carrying something physically off, it’s moved digitally. And that is how exactly how it is found – digitally.
Computers are the basis of most of the work done in many workplaces so when suspicions arise, a computer forensic investigation is one of the first steps to be taken. Even when a thief believes they have deleted records or emails, a computer forensic specialist is often able to find them.
At the outset of computer investigation, an exact duplicate of all the data on the hard drive is created. It’s like a snapshot of the data as it exists at that moment of time. Because the computer forensics analysis is completed on that copy, the actual computer is returned right away and the employee under suspicion is not aware of the work ongoing by the forensic investigator.
Correspondence and work records – including time and date stamps provide a very clear picture of the work completed by individual employees. That data can be extracted and used as evidence.
Working within the computer data forensics recovery protocol, the expert investigator becomes a computer forensics expert witness should the process or data extracted as evidence require testimony in a court of law.
Exposing employee embezzlement still requires investigation and detective work, but computer forensics companies like are experienced with how to do it quickly and properly to resolve the problem sooner. And the sooner embezzlement is stopped, the less impact it has on the business.
-Brenda McGinley, CEO, All in Investigations, All in Investigations
