Kroll Ontrack’s Canine Forensics Team: Sniffing out the evidence and cutting costs
Kroll Ontrack is pleased to announce our latest weapon against data theft; our Canine Data Defenders. This new service, believed to be the first of its kind in the UK, will enable clients to reduce initial data forensics costs and speed up computer forensics investigations.
How does it work?
A dog’s sense of smell is unbelievably powerful, between 10,000 and 100,000 times as acute as humans, depending on the breed. A useful way of imagining this is to think of the difference in terms of vision; if a human can see an object one third of a mile away, a dog can see the same object 3,000 miles away. It is because of this ability that the dog’s sense of smell has long been utilised in the medical, military and law enforcement fields to detect cancer cells, explosives and drugs.
What do Kroll Ontrack’s dogs look for?
The human endocrine system is extremely complex and to a trained nose, compounds found in sweat can reveal much about the human in question’s behaviour and mental state. Someone using a device for illegal activity, for example, is likely to release a greater amount of stress hormone into their sweat which in turn is transferred onto the device via touch. Kroll Ontrack’s canine team has been trained to pick up on these scents and lead handlers to devices that have been used for nefarious purposes. The process is simple and a team of two dogs can check 100 devices within an hour, which is a marked improvement on a human team handling and scanning each device.
After a successful pilot study, the Canine Data Defenders will be available to clients from 31st June 2016.
Kroll Ontrack Head of Computer Forensics , John Perro, commented “This is not about substituting human knowledge but about saving our clients’ time and money. Our dogs can pinpoint a machine used for suspect activity within seconds, allowing our human team to get straight into a type 2 data analysis. We can also see applications in internal compliance investigations. A quick sweep of an office using our dogs will provide compliance officers with a quick and accurate spot check of the company’s activities.”
A second team of dogs is currently in the final stage of training to provide early-evidence services for our ediscovery team, further cementing the role of dogs at Kroll Ontrack.