Fraud Investigations in Texas: How Computer Forensics Can Prevent and Uncover Wrongdoing

Fraud has been an issue in business for as long as currency has been in use – and with increasing levels of businesses reliant on modern technology for everything from transactions to accounting and online banking, it should come as no surprise that business fraud is on the increase. There are tens of thousands of private and public fraud investigations in Texas alone each year. If you’re a business owner, it’s important for you to be able to recognize when fraud occurs, to understand how it is perpetrated and know what you can do to put a stop to it.

What is fraud?

Corporate fraud, in the simplest possible terms, is the removal of funds or assets from a business without authorisation. The two key elements of fraud are deception (deceiving the victim) and deprival (removing funds from the victim). This could involve anything from an employee claiming unnecessary expenses (such as money for fuel or food) to embezzling large amounts of company funds into bogus accounts.

Unfortunately, with modern technology it can be all to easy to cover the tracks of deception and deprival, which is where a team with expertise in fraud investigations in Dallas can be useful.

How does a private fraud investigation work?

Computer forensics can be used to perform an investigative analysis of a computer hard drive and related external peripherals for the purposes of obtaining legal evidence. This could uncover when employees are stealing trade secrets, illegally transferring company funds or passing sensitive information to a third party for personal gain – all of which is pertinent during fraud investigations in Forth Worth or wider Texas.

As part of our fraud investigation measures, the ICFECI team can:

• Create a back-up of a hard drive, so suspected employees will be unaware they are being investigated.

• Extract hidden or password-protected files.

• Rebuild email or messaging service transcripts.

• Identify a history of visited websites.

• Identify when data has been accessed, and by whom.

If you suspect wrongdoing or impropriety in your business, why not implement your own fraud investigations in Texas via the ICFFECI computer forensics specialists? Please do not hesitate to contact us for further information.