Guidance Software, Inc. announces the availability of new capabilities that transform EnCase Portable, a forensic data collection solution on a USB drive, into a triage tool, enabling keyword searching and image viewing on target computers, all while maintaining the forensic integrity of the data. In addition, imaging with EnCase Portable is now more than twice as fast as the previous version, thereby saving customers’ time and money.

With Version 2 of EnCase Portable, non-technical personnel can easily search, view, and collect data from target computers using a single USB thumb drive that contains both the software and the licensing key. It preserves digital evidence in the court-vetted evidence file format for which EnCase is known.

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ)—the research, development, and evaluation arm of the U.S. Department of Justice—has highlighted the need for efficient, reliable collection of electronically stored information. In its 2009 report “High-Priority Criminal Justice Technology Needs,” the NIJ called for “faster, cheaper, and less labor-intensive identification, collection, preservation, and analysis of forensic evidence of all kinds.” Likewise, industry analysts stress similar requirements as judges increasingly expect legal and IT teams to have the internal capability to quickly and thoroughly preserve potentially relevant data for e-Discovery purposes.

Organizations that can benefit from Version 2 of EnCase Portable include:

• Law enforcement agencies: Non-technical field officers can now triage suspect computers to determine quickly whether further analysis is warranted.
• Corporations: Legal and IT teams that perform in-house electronic discovery search and collection can run the exact same search criteria for non-networked laptops and desktops that they use over the network.
• Electronic discovery service providers and law firms: These organizations can improve consistency and defensibility of collections by ensuring clients that the same search methodology and criteria is applied to all custodians—eliminating the well-documented risks associated with the disparate search methods, motives, or thoroughness of certain custodians.

“With EnCase Portable, I can empower my clients to perform cost-effective, defensible collections,” said Chris Mourse, Director, e-Discovery, Forensics, Data Collection, and Analytics, doeLegal. “With minimum intrusion into the daily workflow, a business can collect data in a forensically sound manner in any location and reduce the risk of court sanctions imposed as a result of a poorly executed collection.”

“EnCase Portable allows me to walk into a room with 100 computers and, in a few minutes per computer, determine which ones are relevant to my investigation,” says Steven Wood, U.S. Army Retired and a current contractor located overseas. “This means we don’t waste time collecting irrelevant data and we can get through our caseload more quickly.”

EnCase Portable complements other versions of EnCase software—search criteria for EnCase Portable can be quickly created in EnCase Forensic or EnCase Enterprise, and data collected with EnCase Portable can be loaded into EnCase Forensic or EnCase Enterprise for detailed forensic analysis, or seamlessly integrated into the workflow of EnCase eDiscovery for litigation matters or EnCase Cybersecurity for security incidents or data audits.

For more information, visit guidancesoftware.com.