Employee Misconduct

Misconduct by employees and trusted insiders can expose organizations to crushing regulatory and civil liability, damaged business relationships, negative publicity, and significant costs of remediation. Kivu helps organizations identify and deliver unimpeachable evidence in workplace conduct investigations.

Kivu’s legal cases have included allegations of harassment, workplace theft, accounting fraud, and inappropriate computer usage. Kivu is an industry leader in investigating data destruction and cyber vandalism carried out by current and former employees, including criminal collusion with third parties, competitors and hackers.

Kivu’s forensic professionals are experienced in working with a client’s own IT and security department in order to minimize cost and maximize efficiencies. Kivu has also operated independently, when the target of an investigation was within the IT department itself. Where appropriate, Kivu can add other investigative services, such as custodian or employee interviews, surveillance, and public records research.

Kivu personnel have testified as expert witnesses in state and Federal employment cases on issues of inappropriate computer usage, unauthorized access to confidential data, and privacy issues in workplace investigations. Our analysts have made presentations to employment law groups on best practices and pitfalls in cyber workplace investigations.

Intellectual Property Theft

In a global market, where legal and regulatory frameworks are becoming more stringent, and are more actively enforced, companies need to be ever more vigilant about intellectual property theft. Computer forensics is often the only means of conclusively proving or disproving that intellectual property theft occurred, allowing for successful legal resolution.

Kivu has extensive expertise serving employers who fear that their intellectual property has been compromised. We also provide services in defense of organizations charged with harboring stolen intellectual property.

Our investigation process moves quickly to preserve data, without contaminating it, in a manner that is defensible in court. We examine systems for any evidence that data was transferred, whether through external USB devices, email accounts, network shares or cloud storage accounts. Once the analysis is complete, Kivu provides a certified remediation protocol that is compliant with industry standards, based on our practical experience.

Kivu has expertise at all stages of trade secret cases:

• Confirming the initial suspicions of management
• Providing immediate and accurate evidence in ex-parte actions
• Working with law enforcement and regulators
• Determining the scope of theft or identifying other parties
• Assisting with discovery requests
• Providing expert witness testimony at trial

Kivu works with management and legal counsel to fully investigate suspected theft of trade secrets and confidential data. Kivu personnel have testified as experts in state and Federal courts. Our data preservation, analysis and opinions have been upheld by courts and law enforcement agencies.

Mobile Forensics

Mobile devices are regularly used to save the most personal of information, such as contacts, photos, calendars, notes, text messages, videos, email, web browsing information, location information, and social networking messages and contacts. Kivu’s forensic investigators have the knowledge and experience to analyze whether an individual mobile device has extractable data, and then safely preserve the available evidence. Depending on the type of mobile device, in most cases Kivu can preserve and extract both active and deleted information.

What evidence can be extracted from a mobile device?

• Timeline analysis can identify the timing of user activities and communications
• Cell tower analysis can locate the device geographically at a given time
• Data carving may bring back deleted data
• Keyword searches can isolate relevant data

Kivu’s forensic experts apply proven methods and the most current tools and technologies to identify, recover and interpret digital artifacts. Our forensic professionals are experts at ensuring the proper preservation of digital evidence in all of its many formats. Our team is made up of some of the most highly skilled professionals in the United States, with certifications that include Certified Forensics Examiners, EnCase® Certified Examiners, and Certified Fraud Examiners (GCFE, EnCE, and CFE).