Top 5 Ways Collaborating on Evidence in Magnet REVIEW Helps Increase Quality, Security and Reduce Costs

The pressure is building – the growth in digital devices and volume of digital data has substantially increased the number of cases requiring digital investigation. In fact, over 90% of all cases require a digital investigation creating a heavy burden on the digital forensics unit.

We believe that a collaborative, centralized approach to evidence review is an essential part of the solution to this challenge.

Magnet REVIEW – a web-based evidence review platform purpose-built for use by non-technical investigators – allows you to securely share all digital evidence in one central location so that investigators can review their evidence from anywhere with an internet connection.

By enabling non-technical investigators to review their own case evidence in an accurate and forensically sound manner, you can reduce the burden on your digital forensics team while increasing the quality of investigations and reducing costs.

For example, shipping sensitive evidence on USB drives or requiring investigators to travel to the lab can waste critical investigation time and may introduce security risks. For example, if every case requires a USB drive for the detectives/investigators, you can see in the chart below how much USB-related expenses this could result in for your lab depending on the number of cases your lab investigates every month. For example, if one 64 GB USB flash drive costs approximately $40, and your lab shares 50 cases per month, your lab’s costs would be approximately $2000 per month, or $24,000 per year (see chart below.)

We heard from a lab manager at a mid-size law enforcement agency in a large metropolitan area in the United States that the average cost of external drives and shipping fees exceeds the low six-figures every year. With Magnet REVIEW, this agency could eliminate their evidence distribution costs while improving their security posture and enabling an approach that strengthens the overall quality of their investigations.

Here are the top five ways we believe Magnet REVIEW enables remote teams to adopt a more collaborative approach to strengthen the overall quality and effectiveness of your digital investigations:

1. Cut out extraneous information and insights to save review time and reduce investigation length
   Providing reviewers with a wealth of technical information can overwhelm. REVIEW let’s investigators filter data down to what’s most important to them by using familiar review capabilities such as search, filter, tags, and commenting. Also, near-native document review capabilities present documents and emails as expected. Investigators are not overloaded sifting through features, data, and insights that may not add value to their investigation, or that may cause unnecessary confusion.
   
2. Enable investigators to work together in real-time to strengthen investigation quality
   Reviewing a case individually, isolated from other team members – whether via Portable Case, PDFs and Excel sheets – can result in a slower investigation if your goal is to tackle the workload as a team. Using a free reader tool restricts teams to a linear process – examiner sends processed evidence to each individual reviewer, team members review evidence separately, insights then need to be combined and acted upon.
   
   With REVIEW, evidence is centralized into one easily accessible web-based application, allowing investigators to view each others tagged items and comments together in real-time as well as giving them the ability to split the data up to reduce overall workloads and/or duplicated efforts.
   
3. Protect victim and witness rights by maintaining control over data ingested and accessible in REVIEW
   The digital forensics unit is responsible for maintaining control and governance over digital evidence to protect the privacy of victims and witnesses. Magnet REVIEW helps you to ensure that only data pertinent to the investigation is made available to investigators. While other common review tools, including AXIOM, let you filter down to certain artifacts, REVIEW let’s examiners control at the column level which pieces of information are included in REVIEW via the report templates & column configurations in AXIOM. Additionally, case audit logs let you prove that only those who are approved to have access to the evidence were provided with access
   
4. Increase data security by preventing data fragmentation and unauthorized access
   Providing teams of investigators, located in geographically disparate locations, duplicated sets of evidence and reports results in a situation where it is nearly impossible to control the proliferation of that data and its associated storage costs and security risks.
   
   REVIEW stores data, case work and reports in one centralized storage location to enable effective collaboration, remote work and gives you the ability to control who can view evidence and create/download reports created by other users in the cases you have access to. Flexible role-based access controls prevent unauthorized actions from being taken and ensures workflow processes/SOPs are followed.
   
5. Decrease the time investigators spend learning how to use multiple tools
   When time is of the essence, switching between multiple different reader tools (such as Portable Case or Cellebrite Reader) can slow down investigators. This is especially the case when some tools may not be used as often as others, requiring them to heavily rely on examiners for active support during the review process.
   
   Reviewing all evidence from different tools in one case file saves the investigators time spent learning tools, trying to figure out which tool to use and when, and allows examiners to focus on their core tasks. REVIEW ingests outputs from Magnet AXIOM in addition to other digital forensic tools, such as XRY and soon, UFED* , into one REVIEW case file.
   *Cellebrite ingestion available soon.

To learn more, visit the Magnet REVIEW product page and check out the product overview video to see REVIEW in action.

Speak to an Expert Today

Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have questions or if you’d like a personalized demo of REVIEW. Email us at sales@magnetforensics.com and let us help you empower your investigators to review case evidence, securely and from anywhere.

[1] https://www.npcc.police.uk/Digital%20Forensic%20Science%20Strategy%202020.pdf