Digital forensics and data recovery

Recover what was lost. Find out what happened.

Forensic imaging of drives, recovery of deleted and damaged files, extraction of phone backups, and live investigation of computers you suspect are compromised, using a toolkit we built ourselves.

Capabilities

From a failing drive to a written report

Forensic disk imaging

A sector-by-sector copy of the drive is made first, and all analysis is done on the copy, so the original is never changed.

  • Damaged sectors are retried and logged, not allowed to stop the copy
  • Long copies can be paused and resumed where they left off
  • Each image is fingerprinted with a SHA-256 hash to prove it is unaltered

Deleted and damaged file recovery

Files are recovered from the file system's own records where they survive, and by their content where they do not.

  • NTFS (Windows), FAT and exFAT (USB drives and memory cards) and ext4 (Linux)
  • Deep scans of damaged file tables and the Windows Recycle Bin
  • File carving for photos, videos, audio, PDFs, Office documents, archives and SQLite databases

Mobile phone data

Data is extracted from phones and their backups with the owner's cooperation.

  • iPhone: files from iTunes and Finder backups, including encrypted backups when the backup password is provided
  • Android: files the phone makes accessible over a USB debugging connection

Files already deleted from a modern phone's internal storage usually cannot be recovered without specialist hardware access, and we will tell you plainly when that is the case.

Live investigation of a suspect computer

When a computer may be compromised, we examine it while it is still running, before evidence in memory is lost.

  • Running processes and their digital signatures
  • Code injected into memory that no file on disk accounts for
  • Programs set to start automatically, as malware does to survive a restart
  • Unusual network activity, such as one program contacting many hosts at once
Evidence handling

Every step recorded, every finding explained

Our case reports list the source examined, the settings used, the hash of the forensic image and every file recovered, so the work can be checked and repeated.

  • Work only on devices you own or are authorised to have examined
  • Originals preserved; analysis on verified copies
  • Findings described as evidence, with their limits stated, not as verdicts
  • Confidentiality agreement signed before work begins
When to call us

Common situations we help with

Accidental deletion or formatting

Important files deleted, a memory card formatted, or a drive that no longer opens.

A suspected hack or malware

Strange behaviour, unknown programs or a ransomware note: what got in, what it did and how to clean up.

Internal investigations

Questions about misuse of company computers, examined fairly and documented carefully.

Stop using an affected drive or phone as soon as you notice a problem. Every new file written to it can overwrite the data you want back.

Tell us what happened

Describe the device, what was lost or what you noticed, and when. We will tell you honestly what is likely to be recoverable before any work begins.