When conducting a digital forensic investigation of intellectual property crimes, there are five things you should do.

1. Prepare the business: Prior to a breach occurring, businesses could do some preparation, which would help them later on in an investigation.

2. Understand the case: In the case of intellectual property theft, businesses need to consider all of the ways in which information could have been removed, as well as all the ways that information could have been linked. In addition, businesses needed to consider what systems and data sources employees had access to through normal duties.

3. Collect evidence: There is a wealth of information that can be gleaned from a large number of sources, and the more information a business has, the better chance it has of building a successful case.

4. Analyse the evidence: When analysing the evidence collected, you need to be specific about what the evidence proves and what it doesn't.

5. Present the findings: Explaining things clearly and concisely is really critical, because without that, it doesn't matter how much work you do—you can't get that point across, you can't win the case in the end.

From 5 Tips to Catch an Intellectual Property Thief by Michael Lee for ZDNet.com.au