Proper data preservation is vital to maintain the integrity of client data -- not only when a litigation hold is put in place, but when a company reasonably anticipates litigation. Securely storing and handling electronic evidence not only keeps your data protected but it can allow you to quickly respond to discovery requests when litigation comes knocking.
If data is not carefully handled, a client can be faced with case-related penalties, the credibility of the data will be questioned, or the data could be ruled unreliable or inadmissible in the court room. In addition to the most obvious, proper preservation removes the risk of data spoliation when producing to multiple parties. Believe it or not, these same rules apply to paper documents too, however electronically stored information (ESI) can be easily modified, corrupted, or even deleted -- if not careful.
To carefully manage the preservation process, it is important to ensure that no possible evidence is damaged or modified in any way, shape or form. To do this, we create forensic images of all media as working copies -- making sure the original is accessed as little as possible. We image all media sector-by-sector, certifying that all information (including potentially recoverable data in free space) is maintained. In addition, we perform all imaging without booting the machines, therefore creating a perfect, unaltered, snapshot of the drive as it came from the client.
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Preservation Methodologies
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- Sector-by-sector images of media are created
- Any extracted data is safe from mechanical and electromagnetic damage
- Ensures no viruses are introduced
- Proper chain of custody (CoC) is maintained for any and all handling of original media
- Secure storage of data
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- Single-point entry to data room
- Limited access with biometric security
- Fire-protected data vault
- 24-7 camera surveillance
- Limited access to floors
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