SecureData clinches distribution agreement with digital investigative specialist Guidance Software

Information security group SecureData has signed a sole-distribution agreement with Guidance Software, a US-based firm specialising in digital investigative solutions.

The agreement represents another building block in SecureData's strategy of providing holistic, end-to-end information security solutions across an enterprise, including both perimeter and internal systems.

In the past two months, SecureData has purchased SensePost, a company that focuses on high-end security assessment and penetration testing, and signed a distribution agreement with networking and security vendor, Juniper.

SecureData business development director Wayne Biehn says Guidance Software is geared towards digital investigation and computer forensics.

Guidance Software encompasses searching for relevant information, collecting it and presenting as evidence to authorities. "It presents the evidence in such a way that it proves the evidence is intact and has not been tampered with or manufactured," says Biehn. "It provides digital evidence that is automatically admissible according to the strict requirements of the law."

The software's preventative capabilities, driven by governance compliance, enable basic and proactive management and audits of records. They are based on an electronic discovery system that automatically searches (according to set parameters) and collates all information necessary for an investigation. "This eliminates the need for manually gathering the required information," he says. "It can be a significant cost-saving, should just one piece of litigation affect an organisation."

Guidance Software provides a powerful, network-enabled tool that provides thorough investigative processing of information from anywhere in an enterprise without disrupting operations. "The results are verifiable, indisputable and can be stored in a secure environment should they be required in the future, for example, to prove compliance in terms of governance requirements," says Biehn.

EnCase is an enterprise-wide investigative platform that provides the foundation to conduct thorough and effective computer investigations of any kind, such as intellectual property theft, real-time incident response, fraud mitigation, information assurance, compliance auditing, and responds to eDiscovery/eDisclosure requests - all while maintaining the forensic integrity of the data.