Scenario 1: Intellectual Property Theft
Overview: A former employee is suspected of copying proprietary software source code before signing with a competitor.
EDRM Execution:
- Identification: Map the employee's work laptop, personal cloud accounts, and internal company repositories.
- Forensic Collection: Acquire bit for bit images of all relevant hardware.
- Analysis: Look for file transfer patterns, access to key server directories, and communication logs with competing entity stakeholders.
Scenario 2: Corporate Financial Fraud
Overview: Internal audit suspects senior executives of manipulating spreadsheets to inflate quarterly reports.
EDRM Execution:
- Governance: Review the company policy for financial data retention.
- Processing: Narrow down millions of emails and spreadsheets to specific date ranges coincident with the reporting periods.
- Review: Legal team evaluates communications to determine if intent for fraud exists or if errors were inadvertent.
Exercise: Design a Forensic Workflow
Consider a situation where a small firm faces an HR breach. Using the EDRM framework, outline the first three steps and the primary tool you would utilize for the collection phase. Compare your strategy with the detailed stage analysis provided on this portal.