Financial cybersecurity and digital evidence.
CollectiveIS combines cybersecurity assurance with evidence-led incident support. This allows clients to improve controls before an incident and preserve reliable records when an incident occurs.
Enterprise cybersecurity assurance.
Our assurance services assess whether security controls are designed, implemented and operated in a manner that supports financial, legal and regulatory obligations.
- Security posture and control-gap assessments.
- Cyber-risk assessments and security-control reviews.
- Privileged-access, identity and cloud-configuration reviews.
- Vulnerability management and remediation tracking.
- Authorised penetration testing, delivered with qualified specialists under written authorisation and agreed rules of engagement.
- Logging, monitoring (SIEM) and incident-readiness design and assessment.
- Backup, recovery and resilience control verification.
- Supplier and third-party cyber-risk assessment.
- Security-awareness training for staff and executives.
- Policy, standard, procedure and evidence-register development.
- ISO/IEC 27001-aligned risk and control implementation support.
Digital forensics and financial computer investigations.
Open the Digital Forensics and Data Lifecycle division page
Digital-forensic work requires repeatable processes, appropriate tools and a defensible record of each action. CollectiveIS is developing laboratory capability for forensic acquisition, evidence preservation, analysis support and technical reporting.
- Forensic imaging of approved storage media and devices, with chain-of-custody records aligned to ISO/IEC 27037.
- Use of hardware write-blocking controls where applicable.
- Hash verification and integrity recording.
- Evidence intake, identification, sealing, transfer and storage records.
- Examination support for file systems, user activity, communications and artefacts.
- Incident reconstruction, timeline development and technical fact reporting.
- Expert technical reports and litigation-support liaison.
- Support to legal, disciplinary, fraud and financial-investigation processes.
- IT general-controls and financial-systems assurance reviews — access, change, operations, backup, interface and application controls — delivered as agreed-upon procedures with a findings matrix.
- Controlled engagement with external specialists when scope requires additional accreditation or expert testimony.
Forensic readiness planning is available so that evidence sources, retention rules and response responsibilities are defined before an incident occurs. Evidence-handling controls are described on the Digital Forensics and Data Lifecycle page.
Scope boundary. CollectiveIS is not a statutory external auditor, financial adviser or regulated financial-services provider; this work is technical assurance, not a regulated financial service. Where audit reliance or an audit opinion is required, work is performed with IRBA-registered audit professionals. CollectiveIS does not guarantee forensic conclusions or evidentiary outcomes; findings reflect the evidence examined.
Data recovery under controlled handling.
Data-recovery services address logical failure, damaged media and selected device-level failures. Each case begins with an assessment of condition, recoverability, confidentiality and commercial value.
- Triage and non-destructive assessment before any intervention.
- Forensic or recovery imaging before repair attempts where feasible, with cases classified as forensic or commercial before media is accepted.
- Logical recovery from damaged file systems, formatted volumes and deleted data, performed in-house.
- Physical, firmware-level and cleanroom recovery delivered through vetted specialist laboratories under CollectiveIS case management and client approval.
- Encrypted return media and client-authorised data handover.
- Case closure records and secure handling of residual copies.
Recovery cannot be guaranteed. Feasibility depends on media condition, encryption, prior overwrite activity, device damage and available technical methods. No repair is attempted on original evidence media without written authority.
Verifiable data erasure and controlled disposal.
CollectiveIS plans to provide verifiable data-erasure services using recognised erasure platforms such as Blancco or Certus, currently under evaluation and subject to licensing and service readiness. Data destruction is operated separately from data recovery, and physical destruction is delivered through audited partners where required.
- Asset identification and authorisation verification.
- Media classification and erasure-method selection aligned to NIST SP 800-88 Rev. 1 and IEEE 2883.
- Software-based sanitisation using licensed tools.
- Erasure verification, exception handling and serialised certificates of erasure.
- Audit-record production for asset-disposal governance.
- Chain-of-custody control during collection, processing and return.
- Escalation to audited physical-destruction partners — with destruction certificates, witnessed destruction on request and recycling records — where software erasure is unsuitable.
Incident-response support and retainers.
Incident support follows a defined sequence so that response decisions, evidence and remediation actions remain accountable. Incident retainers place these steps under a pre-agreed engagement.
- Confirm incident authority, scope and decision ownership.
- Preserve volatile and persistent evidence where required.
- Contain affected systems using approved operational controls.
- Identify affected accounts, systems, information and business processes.
- Coordinate technical remediation and vendor escalation.
- Maintain an incident chronology, action log and evidence register.
- Support legal, regulatory, insurance and management reporting.
- Complete post-incident review and corrective-action tracking.