Computer forensics are often important in determining the extent of data theft.  Data theft not always comes in the form of a computer being attacked by a hacker in a far away location.  Data theft many times comes from within, from employees taking the company's data and selling it to competitors or taking it themselves so that they can start their own competing business.  In a recent case in Virginia, a company claimed certain damages for purposes of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).  Although the party did not keep a precise or contemporaneous log of the hours he spent responding to the unauthorized computer access, he provided estimates. He estimated that he spent 72.5 hours of time on these activities, which included, by way of example, twelve hours in meetings with, twenty hours communicating with computer forensics, and twelve hours setting up the Box.net service.  The computer forensics expert spent 31.6 hours overseeing the investigation and resecuring the system following the unauthorized access. The activities included coordinating the computer forensics investigation of the laptop and assisting in drafting letters to defendants concerning the unauthorized access. These letters apparently served two purposes, namely (i) obtaining more information from defendants themselves about their accessing the files, and (ii) obtaining defendants' voluntary agreement to cease further unauthorized access.  You may read the computer forensics case here.

We frequently assist our clients in detecting computer system intrusion and other Information Security services.  Additionally, our Virginia computer forensics experts can assist attorneys in the investigation of the case and in being able to explain to a judge and jury the complexities of computer incident response and computer forensics in Virginia.   You may contact us at AVM Techology, LLC, 8527 Mayland Drive, Richmond VA 23294, (804) 332-5752;