Yet, despite these concerns and millions of dollars spent to allay them, serious crimes against businesses are increasing.
Ironically, most security measures are designed to protect businesses from external threats, when in fact; the most of serious danger is often an internal one.
According to Mario Bekes, Managing Director for Insight Intelligence, organisations are always looking to protect their intellectual property, marketing strategies, blue prints, business plans, client lists etc, and in turn their market share.
But when an organisation is compromised through staff leaks or industrial espionage disaster is sometimes the result.
Regardless what measures a corporation or business put into place, there will always be fraud at a workplace or some form of industrial espionage, and saying that, business will experience loss either financially or their competitive edge.
Insight Intelligence has been commissioned numerous times to conduct investigations related to fraud at the workplace or theft of property, or intellectual property.
Our success in preventing or discovering fraud was not only related to success of the investigation itself.
We also encourage and educate employers to take a more proactive and preventative approach by identifying potential fraud and perpetrators in an organisation.
Psychological profiling can be used to determine likely suspects and where appropriate a surveillance investigations coupled with factual investigations can be used to uncover the offender.
We use a variety of investigative techniques to reveal the individual responsible, or in some cases a broader network of employees or external parties involved in workplace fraud, theft, or industrial espionage.
Most common reasons behind fraud at the work place or industrial espionage are:
• Financial difficulties (mortgage repayments, credit cards, gambling etc).
• Improving lifestyle (expensive cars, clothing or travel etc).
• Management climate (if employee notice that some of managers are behaving dishonestly they will make judgment and do same).
• Revenge (having an unhappy employee can create tremendous loss for your organisation).
Do these motives apply to any of your employees?
Polygraphs – how do these work and how do they benefit an investigation?
A polygraph is an instrument that records certain physiological changes in a person undergoing questioning in an effort to ascertain truth or deception.
Polygraph testing is currently being used in more than 50 countries in the fields of corrections, criminal investigations, intelligence/counter intelligence and fraud investigations.
For decades polygraph usage has proven successful in: eliminating suspects, recognising false complaints, testing the veracity of information supplied, providing a new “key” to an investigation when all other standard investigative techniques have been exhausted, narrowing the focus of enquiry, gathering additional information and evidence, exonerating those falsely or maliciously accused of wrong doing in the absence of other corroborative, scientific, forensic or direct evidence.
Polygraphs should be seen as a tool for investigating fraud and used in conjunction with standard investigative techniques such as evidence gathering, questioning techniques and interviews, testing alibi evidence, and document analysis.
Sample Case: A large national retail chain had been the victim of several large thefts. In one case $25,000 had been stolen from a safe within the office area. Factual investigations were conducted in conjunction with polygraph testing to determine who was involved. In total eight staff had been interviewed and polygraph tested of which seven had clearly passed. The eighth staff member who was scheduled to do a test admitted before the commencement of the test that she had stolen money from the safe on several occasions.
What is forensic data recovery and how is this useful in an investigation?
Forensic data recovery is a process to retrieve data usually for legal purposes often for criminal or civil investigations, and also can be used in a variety of other circumstances.
The process is performed by trained technicians who have studied computer science and information technology.
Forensic data recovery accesses areas of a computer which would not normally be seen or used to check for specific activities of interest, along with data recovery which is aimed at recovering data which was deliberately erased, damaged, or corrupted.
This process not only is used to recover information from computer hard drives and now includes company issued I-pads, I-phones and PDA’s.
Insight Intelligence was recently commissioned by National Association for Information Destruction to conduct a study on 52 hard drives that had apparently been cleared of information.
Insight Intelligence retrieved confidential information including internal company information and even information from government departments on eight of the 52 hard drives.
Pornographic material and legal information was also retrieved as well as company client information which those entities had an obligation to protect.
In a recent matter a forensic data recovery process was coupled with a detailed factual investigation revealing an employee had been using a company issued device inappropriately.
Detailed information was retrieved despite the employee believing that all evidence of his wrongdoing and breach of company protocol had been cleared. The employee was terminated.
In a further example a company believed a senior employee had been stealing and disseminating intellectual property in an effort to start up a new business with a competitor.
Insight Intelligence was engaged and the forensic data recovery investigation revealed this was the case, despite the employee’s best efforts to clear any evidence of his breach of contract from the company computers and I-pad. Evidence was provided to the client to be used in court.
The ability of professionals such as Insight Intelligence to retrieve data forensically, which individuals or entities believe have been erased whether deliberately or otherwise, has significant ramifications for companies in regards to how they store and dispose of electronic data, who has access to it, on how they comply with data storage and privacy legislation, and also for dishonest employees who believe that they are too clever to be caught.
Visit www.insightintelligence.com.au
