Expert opinions provide security
Expert opinions are often seen as an annoying necessity when the parties in dispute cannot agree on a matter.
Expert opinions can, however, provide a "safety loop" before disagreements or possible errors occur.
Dr. Möhring und Partner uses expert opinions to help you gain an objective view and overview of a matter.
The preparation of a report involves the following steps/processes:
- Determination/definition of the reason for the order, and thus the amount of work required
- Recording the condition at the time the order is placed
- Securing this condition against changes by users or the expert
- Securing evidence by creating copies, image/document evidence and data backups
After Dr. Möhring und Partner have summarized the results, the customer issues a work order to resolve the problem in close consultation and according to specifications.
Examples
Expert reports are usually commissioned when damage to the hardware and/or software in an IT environment has already occurred.
In the case of technical damage caused by physical influences (fire, water) or technical errors (hard drive crash, mechanical damage from outside), the causes are usually obvious. Nevertheless, damage to IT equipment can be part of a larger damage event that requires objective clarification.
In the case of damage to data, in the area of software and intellectual property, the causes are not visible to the naked eye and are difficult to determine and quantify without the appropriate in-depth expertise.
The subsequent costs of data damage are more extensive than replacing hardware, i.e. the technical equipment.
Dr Möhring und Partner support with in-depth IT expertise by objectively determining the condition after the damage has become known, documenting the damage in this regard and, depending on the order, restoring the hardware and software environment for operation.
Extended knowledge provides security
Today, life in both the professional and private spheres is increasingly linked by digital data.
Even during education, studies and then in the workplace, one's own (valuable and individual) data are created, shared or exchanged with third parties and sometimes a matter of ollaboration.
In private life, contracts, online banking and insurances generate sensitive data that, according to data protection, data security and the protection of one's own person or intellectual property, should not be accessed by unauthorized third parties.
The following three areas require special expert intuition and tracing with trained, as well as sensitive, handling.
IT-Forensics
IT forensics cover detection and the restoration of inaccessible data and content with due diligence.
Unlike data research, e.g. in a digital legacy, IT forensics usually involve intensive data research plus the question of the previous causes.
- How could the data be deleted?
- How could data be accessed without authorization?
- Which data were falsified by whom and when?
IT forensics are derive from the wording of forensics in criminalistics, because the question of the cause or the person responsible is always focussed.
Customers are often simply relieved when their data are restored and in the future will only be accessible to authorized persons.
Necessary service on data recovery, data restoration, reorganization of IT, etc. can be associated with considerable costs.
Customers want to cover such costs through insurances, such as cyber insurance.
Insurance companies usually require policyholders to provide suitable evidence that they have taken the necessary and appropriate security precautions in line with the state of the art to minimize the risk of damage, before concluding the cyber insurance contract.
If necessary, Dr. Möhring und Partner will prepare an overview of the requirements that have been met or that still need to be met.
In the event of unauthorized intervention by third parties and damage caused as a result, the costs caused by this should generally be passed on to the person responsible. This requires clearly specified reports on the extent to which who, when, how, why and with what causal contribution was made to the damage that occurred.
Dr. Möhring und Partner will prepare specific reports on behalf of third parties using the data and end devices provided.
IT networks / IT structures
IT structures automatically grow with companies over the years.
Solutions that were selected in the early days of the company for reasons of cost and simplicity are kept and continuously used for different reasons.
With a growing number of employees and a diversification of tasks, the simple, previously suitable solutions become the source of errors or at least an obstacle to processes that can be coordinated more easily.
Dr. Möhring und Partner help to review the existing structures in terms of current requirements. Suggestions for improvements, security or adaptation can help the company to continue to grow and to be able to work effectively on the basis of secure IT structures.
There are various levels of analysis in IT network reports.
On the technical level, the infrastructure of the network devices, the cabling and the connection sockets is the focus as a purely physical and mechanical source of error.
In this area, Dr. Möhring und Partner have professional measurement technology and experience in detecting sources of errors in the network installation on the hardware side.
At the conceptual level of the IT network architecture, incorrect settings of the connected devices in the IT network can cause massive performance restrictions and data errors.
Dr. Möhring und Partner systematically scan and check a given network architecture for sources of error and correct them.
At the installation level of the IT network system controls, incorrect protocols, unfavorable (slow) IP address assignments, and less suitable software solutions can disrupt smooth network communication.
Dr. Möhring und Partner can track down and correct such sources of error caused by settings and software.
Digital Legacy / Digital Heritage
More and more communication, the exchange of documents and certificates, money and legal transactions are taking place online. Just a few years ago, legally relevant documents had to be printed out as evidence. In the interests of sustainability and resource protection, as well as the rapid exchange of and access to data, duplicates created in analog (paper) form are no longer necessary.
The consequence of digital data creation, data storage and data access is that individuals as well as companies should set up regulated, secure and known authorized access policies of data access. In many cases such policies are missing or have not (yet) been defined.
The term “digital legacy” is narrowly associated with questions of access to data of deceased people. Relatives, heirs, estate administrators and courts need access to the data.
The group of those who must have access to a "digital legacy" or whose access must be blocked is even more extensive:
Companies must block employees' access after they leave the company. However, the company still requires access to the data their employees have generated for work. Any data that an employee may have stored privately in the company must, however, be handed over to the employee without being able to view it and then securely deleted.
In private life, life situations such as divorces, separation of professional areas of activity (e.g. the wife leaving the husband's business as an accountant) require measures to block access opportunities, access rights and the merging of data to protect against unauthorized access by third parties in the future.
Dr. Möhring und Partner support customers in considering access options, searching for data, determining access rights to data and the technical security and organization of data in accordance with their own and legal requirements.
Due diligence consulting at a high level of confidentiality is self-evident.