Trusted Digital Forensics Consultancy Relies on Exterro FTK® Central

An Exterro FTK^® Case Study

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BIT4LAW Digital Forensics and Data Protection

Industry: Digital forensics consultancy

Location: Bologna, Italy

Employees: 12

Founded: 2015

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BIT4LAW is a boutique digital forensics consultancy. Founded in 2015 by two partners who have combined for well over four decades’ experience in digital forensics, BIT4LAW serves individuals, lawyers, businesses, and the Italian judiciary in civil, criminal, and administrative matters. Their team of experts with legal, technical, and academic backgrounds pride themselves on delivering the highest standards of customer care.

Delivering Bespoke Consulting Services to Every Client

As one of the leading digital forensics consultant agencies in Italy, BIT4LAW sets high standards for themselves. They have received ISO 9001, ISO 27001, and ISO 27037 certifications, demonstrating their commitment to security and confidentiality for their clients–making them the first Italian company, and one of an elite group worldwide, to meet these exacting standards. 

Unsurprisingly, they demand a similar level of trust and reliability in the technology they use to provide services to their clients, which is why BIT4LAW has trusted the Exterro FTK family of solutions for years.

BIT4LAW’s reputation for excellence has made them the preferred choice of large corporate clients including major banks, pharmaceutical companies, and telecoms–as well as individuals, law firms, and the Italian judiciary. But with such a diverse clientele, they need to approach each case with an adaptable mindset, customized strategy, and the ability to scale up operations when an exceptionally large data set demands it. 

To deliver that level of flexibility, BIT4LAW needs workflows and technologies that are flexible, scalable, and enable communication and collaboration with the client throughout the entire process. For instance, on occasion they build “virtual datarooms” for e-discovery projects after acquiring, indexing, and analysing digital evidence. This ensures they maintain a high level of confidentiality and security, while also making sure the data is available to clients’ teams that need access to it.

One approach to solving this challenge would be using a variety of purpose-specific technology solutions across their process, but that posed its own challenges. Managing Director Michele Ferrazzano, Ph.D. explained, “Organizing what is needed for e-discovery requires the use of multiple tools, heterogeneous among themselves, sometimes leading to compatibility issues or the need to convert the files involved. Transferring information between tools requires a lot of manual work, which can be time-consuming and prone to errors. Furthermore, the use of multiple different tools results in a significant loss of efficiency, with repercussions on meeting deadlines.” 

Identifying an All-in-One Solution

For many years, BIT4LAW had relied on Exterro FTK for digital forensics and e-discovery. As a success to FTK, FTK Central was appealing to them, since its scalable web-based platform directly addressed their need for scalability, collaboration, and communication in a single technology solution. Despite being relatively new to the market, they decided to give it a try; they knew that the benefits of an integrated solution would outweigh those concerns.

“Exterro products have always been our go-to solution for a variety of tasks, such as data indexing, forensic analysis, email management including parsing and accessing various formats, file statistics, deduplication, and most importantly, keyword search,” said Ferrazzano. “In fact, keyword search has always been a killer feature of FTK, which has often allowed us to solve investigations very quickly and immediately find relevant data for the investigation. It allows for in-depth analysis of specific areas, such as mobile forensics, beyond what is possible with the standard parsing tools provided by manufacturers.”

Realizing that their reliance on cutting edge technology has been a selling point for BIT4LAW, they decided to invest in FTK Central to help stay ahead of their competitors. It would allow their growing team to use the technology at the same time–meaning they would need fewer licenses for other software solutions–plus they also reduced the costs and management time associated with using multiple software platforms.

A Solid Return on Investment

Since transitioning to FTK Central, BIT4LAW has achieved the benefits they hope for, with faster workflows and reduced administrative and technical overhead managing their technology. “The processing power of forensic images is blazing fast, enabling us to start analysis immediately, especially using FTK Central’s cloud infrastructure,” said Ferrazzano. “This has accelerated the entire digital forensic investigation and e-discovery process, and we are now able to deliver results to our clients in no time.”

FTK Central has also paid off for internal and external collaboration, allowing BIT4LAW to manage digital exhibits, data review, virtual datarooms, e-discovery, and forensic analysis, altogether in one place. And its easy-to-use web-based platform has allowed them to give their clients access to the digital evidence without any additional training. Ferrazzano and the BIT4LAW team have been happy with their decision. Advising others in similar situations, he said, “FTK Central is particularly suitable for forensic analysis and subsequent data consultation by lawyers and consultants in a secure environment, providing data confidentiality guarantees. It is especially useful in investigations for courts, particularly in civil proceedings related to intellectual property.”

FTK Central offers limitless scalability and processing power with simplified review in collaborative, web-based platform. Get a demo today.