Encore Success Story

Overseas Collection on a Tight Timeframe

Problem: Encore received a Friday afternoon call from a client in the financial services industry. The client had just terminated an employee and suspected he was involved in illegal activity. The company is based in Panama, where a 30-day retention policy is common, so they needed forensic data pulls fast. There was an Exchange server in Panama, and data also needed to be collected from three laptops in New York and Miami and a BlackBerry in Miami.

Solution: Encore immediately called a Miami-based team member with experience in overseas data acquisition, who immediately got to work securing the necessary visa for a trip to Panama. Team members were also sent to New York and Miami on short notice. By Tuesday–only five days after the original call–all data had been acquired and delivered to the client.

Knowledge: The most precarious part of this project was making sure a team member could get proper documentation for doing business in Panama on short notice. Encore team members frequently travel overseas, and have a good understanding of the requirements and process for working in most countries. In this case, Encore also contacted a backup resource in case documentation could not be secured in time: a Panamanian citizen based in the United States who could travel freely on his Panamanian passport.

Process: Once Encore team members got to the site and were able to deploy Encore’s typical process for data collection, the work took only a few hours. This included Encore’s specific process for collecting information from BlackBerries, which is designed to ensure that calendar items retain the formatting essential for piecing together timelines.

Technology: The hardware for these collections was able to fit into a simple laptop bag, making travel to Central America much easier. Encore also used Guidance’s Encase® forensic investigation software on this project. As always, the team provided detailed reports back to the clients IT department, including details of the data pull, such as the time spent, file types and document paths.