Cyber Detectives: Who You Gonna Call?
As a cyber detective agency, we often tell people that we are the last person you ever want to call.
You remember the old joke. "You know you are having a bad day when Mike Wallace from 60 minutes shows up on your door step"...
Unfortunately, the same is true in our business but thankfully, most people do not need to hire a detective until the internet turns very ugly on them. To best illustrate, let me just give you a couple of examples of how badly the internet has gone for some and then the courses of action to help fix it.
In one recent case, a US Corporation was being blackmailed for over $1 Million dollars by a group that had adverse information and was threatening to expose it worldwide, with the push of a button. Quite frankly, there are not many companies around who don't have some type of information, including trade secrets, that would be devastating if openly exposed on the internet.
In another case, a client was attacked by an antagonist putting up a defamatory site aimed at destroying a private cancer center and diverting business. The attacks were totally unfair and were substantially hampering getting further clients. For something as serious as cancer treatment, any potential client of the center's is going to research their reputation online and come across this very negative (and untrue) information. Obviously, the center must somehow respond and defend their reputation.
To further date myself, this is like an old rerun of the movie Ghostbusters: "Who you going to call when the internet turns nasty?" A cyber detective, that is who.
Frankly, for most clients, they are really distraught by the time they stumble their way into an internet detective agency because they have not been able to make any headway anywhere else.
What a competent detective can do for you is to first, really help you understand realistic options. These options may range all the way from identifying the attacker, to establishing a chain of evidence for litigation support, to developing a case that is then suitable for local law enforcement to then take action.
To accomplish these objectives, the high-tech investigators must maintain a set of skills and software tools that are just not available to the average person, company, lawyer, or even local law enforcement. When people attack online, they typically do not "sign their name" to the information. So, even though the victim may "KNOW" who is doing the attacks, they frequently cannot prove it. This is a role where a good, licensed private detective can help you, especially one with extensive cyber training.
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