Bad Employees - Employee Computer Data

It's Your Computer Data - It's Your Business

If your business has no employees (past or present) that make you nervous, then read no further.  On the other hand, if you've ever felt a certain uneasiness about someone's employee computer data, or whether you would like a copy of their computer hard drive, you might want to contact Progressive Imaging and Consulting to help put your mind at ease.  If it's still early in the game, and your concerns are not immediate, it would probably be wise to put in place a method of employee monitoring.  A google search with the terms employee monitor will yield a number of possibilities, or let us lend a hand.

If your "suspect" employee is really moving unauthorized computer data in or out of your company, they will rarely use your company mail to do it.  They will often depend upon the "cover" of a webmail account.  We can now help punch through that wall, using our newest cloud collection tool.  As soon as you receive the location and access parameters, we will access that web mail account, copying any or all of the data that resides there back to our secure location in the cloud.  From there, you will be able to search through the information, and come to a complete understanding of the activities of your employee.

Hard Drive Copy - Clone - Image   What are We Saying?

If you read on at this web site, or others that describe this subject, it would be a good idea to get a few terms clear. 

A Hard Drive COPY is a recreation of a disk, most likely containing all "active files" on the original hard drive.  A Cloud Collection from Progression Imaging, is a Hard Drive COPY, if all active files are selected for copy.  In many cases, a "focused acquisition" will be performed, where only what are believed to be pertinant folders and files will be selected for copy. 

A CLONE of a hard drive is just like a copy.  The result with either is a drive that functions just like the original, with the same active data.

An IMAGE of a hard drive is a bit by bit, exact duplicate of the data on the original.  An image is the desired product if you wish to acquire slack and unallocated space, two items that we loosely describe as "inactive data".  An IMAGE is the most reliable product when pure computer forensics level processes are required.  The computer data from the original drive is assembled into an inalterable "file" that requires advanced capabilities and software to even access.  Since most people who request our help say "COPY" but they mean "IMAGE" we will use both terms, but we almost always mean IMAGE.

Confidential Company Computer Data

If your employee is committing computer data theft while still employed by you, or taking that computer data with them when they leave your company, the result could affect your company's ability to survive.  If you suspect these or similar activities are in process or may have happened, contact Progressive Imaging and Consulting.  First of all, ALL the data that resides on your company computers is YOUR data.  Get yourself a legal opinion that gives you a clear understanding of your rights as an employer.  You should make this policy clear to your employees verbally, and in company information like the Employee Handbook.  Let us help you look for what's making you uncomfortable.  Most likely, there's a trail to follow, and we've already helped close the loop on bad employees, and their new employers, that hoped to gain from the computer data theft.

 Harassment, Sexual Harassment and Lies

When an employee, even a "good employee", experiences a change in attitude, their behavior on every level might be affected. In some rare circumstances, their behavior may deteriorate to the point where they harass their co-workers, or even customer contacts.  This harassment could be of a general nature, or fall into the category of sexual harassment.  Before you take action, either reprimanding or terminating an employee, allow us to gather computer data first.  Allow us access through the internet, and we'll utilize our new cloud collection tool to view the root data structure of any computer you give us access to.  We can then perform a cloud collection, which will make an exact copy of the data you need, back in our secure cloud location.  We can also collect data from any webmail account they will provide access to.  Your employee could be using the machine while we do our work, and never know we're there.  With the employee computer data, you will have valuable information about that employee's activities.  If you fail to take a snapshot of the employee computer data as soon as you suspect a problem, you may lose valuable time and data that might help you make a plan based on facts.  An employee who is found to be taking part in questionable behavior will often attempt to lie their way out of trouble.  Don't leave the door open, lock down the facts.  Copy (or image) their computer data and webmail information.