Why computer forensics is important in industrial espionage? - Computers - Computer Forensics

To answer the question above, there are two definitions that you may need to know first.

1. What is computer forensics?

According to the Wikipedia website, Computer forensics is a branch of forensics science encompassing the recovery and investigation of material found in digital devices. This is basically done by retrieving, preserving and doing proper analysis of the results about important data that are stored on a computer. This is normally done in relation to computer crimes.

2. What is industrial espionage?

Industrial espionage is a commercial purpose theft of valuable and confidential data of a company by either copying or removing means. This crime is normally committed by competitors and it includes activities like blackmail, bribery and trade secrets.

In today's business world, competition is high and keeps on growing. This is a reason why business owners and managers will almost do whatever it takes to know the secrets of their biggest competitors. The secrets may be about investment plans, financial plans, marketing plans, new product introduction in the market, or customer information. We have even seen incidences where a competitor purchases a rival company's product, disassembles it to get technical knowledge about producing a similar or same product.

One of the top secrets of a company is the consumers' database, reason being that no one wants to lose their customers to a competitor. On the other hand, that is the competitor's top target. Databases are usually protected by passwords, but technology has become so unpredictable that criminals can still access databases using spy software, which may just be installed in a computer in the same network as that containing the database. Reports show that most of the secrets are normally leaked out by an employee of the company. The data may be copied to another storage device, say a memory stick, or sent to another computer through a network. There is no way you will know that this happened unless you catch the person doing it and since the perpetrator will make sure they delete any files or activities that may let them be suspected, the chance becomes even slimmer.This is where the need for digital forensics and Dell digital forensics comes in as all the activities and delet ed files of the perpetrator can be retrieved and be produced as evidence. The professionals have all the needed skills and equipment that are required to investigate computer crimes.