Who Should Worry About Computer Evidence?
Various state and federal laws may require that a company be able to do computer forensic investigations. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which grew out of the Enron and Andersen Consulting scandals, mandate that corporations have more stringent internal audit capability which would include computer forensic investigations. Failure can result in fines of up to five million dollars or up to 20 years in prison. Businesses often have old computers lying around with tons of confidential information. Overworked and largely ignorant IT staff may throw these computers away or give them to friends. This can lead to disaster, as important documents can be recovered from these computers. John Colbert, Senior Executive Vice President of Guidance Software suggests that businesses keep the hard-drive of any computer they give away. Leased computers are becoming more popular in the business world. Similar to leasing cars, a business pays a monthly amount to use a computer and at the end of two years
