Forensics Journal - Stevenson University 2015 | Page 17

FORENSICS JOURNAL

As a result, cloud-based data storage is growing in popularity
due to the ease of access and the affordability. For a small business,
it might be more cost efficient to have a cloud solution in place
that reduces the cost of IT personnel and server maintenance,
repair and replacement. A common scenario would be for each
individual employee to have a desktop or laptop computer that
uses a cloud drive to store and share company files. Then, those
individual computers are backed up to a cloud server on a regular
basis, capturing any data that is not already saved to a cloud
network drive.

can analyze multiple sources of data and data types in order
to search for patterns that point to suspicious activity.
Performing data analytics requires executing a plan. While each
organization may have a specific technique or strategy that is
customized to their business model, the plan should consider the
following basic steps: 1) develop a plan to collect records, 2) gather
data in standard formats, such as a spreadsheet file, a database file,
or a .pdf file, 3) enter the data into a central database, 4) review the
data for irregularities, 5) analyze the data, and 6) create a report to
summarize conclusions (Spann, 2014, p. 27). Following these steps
helps with the efficiency of the analysis. For example, specifying
ahead of time the formats that the fraud examiner would like to
receive will eliminate issues with entering the data into the database.
Following these steps can also ensure that the integrity of the data is
not compromised.

Data may also be stored with outside sources such as banking
and website transactions. For example, a company might have a
web portal that stores individual sales transactions or customer
information but may not import that detail into the accounting
system. They may only import an entry of total sales for the day.
So, if a fraud examiner were attemptin