Guidance Software Unveils EnCase Big Data Investigator for E-Discovery

The creation of data is multiplying at an exponential rate. Experts now point to a 4,300 percent increase in annual data generation by 2020, with 80 percent of that data in the enterprise. Over 75 percent of electronic discovery costs are associated with the review of electronically stored information (ESI). Companies of all sizes face record amounts of discovery requests and internal investigations. These organizations require more efficient methods to analyze data while dramatically reducing time and costs.

Pasadena, Calif.-based Guidance Software, makers of EnCase for digital investigations and endpoint data security, is looking to answer this need with EnCase Big Data Investigator – a scalable big data-enabled early case assessment and investigation platform that identifies meaningful relationships between data sets and reveals insights. The platform integrates EnCase e-Discovery with Brainspace Analytics, it and will be sold through Areté Advisors, a national reseller and integrator. This partnership seeks to help organizations speed time to resolution, improve the accuracy of discovery and investigation initiatives and potentially save millions of dollars in investigation and legal review costs.

“Exposure of sensitive information for disputes and other malicious activity in the investigative process puts companies at risk to significant liability, regulatory fines, economic damages and reputational damage,” said Joe Mann, president and CEO of Areté Advisors. “Given these risks and the increasing complexity of data types and volumes, the market has seen a sharp uptick in demand for machine learning solutions that can access and analyze big data in all its formats in investigations. Using the Big Data Investigator platform, knowledge workers will be able to apply advanced analytics without needing 'data scientist' expertise. The system will provide case review and auditing capabilities that are critical to large-scale investigations, while providing more accurate and legally defensible results.”

EnCase Big Data Investigator allows a legal team, investigator or risk analyst to:

• Collect data from every endpoint during an internal investigation and dispute applying analytics, machine learning and visual analytics into one intuitive interface with speed and simplicity.
• Gain greater visibility of data, understanding potential risk while reducing cost and waste in the review.
• Apply machine learning analytics and case analysis to support traditional e-Discovery workflow.
• Simplify the review process by reducing data to relevant facts, using defensible machine learning technology while creating an overall better user experience.

“As unstructured data continues to grow in both volume and complexity, the future belongs to the companies that can intelligently surface the insights and answers that currently lay dormant in the data,” said Dave Copps, founder and CEO of Brainspace. “Companies will now be able to quickly identify non-obvious insights and significantly reduce relevant data sets, resulting in faster, smarter and more cost-effective investigations.”

“Large, complex investigation and case assessment costs are enormous,” said Patrick Dennis, president and CEO, Guidance Software. “Based on market demand for a high performance early case assessment for e-Discovery, our partnership with Brainspace and Areté is a strategic extension to our EnCase portfolio for large, complex enterprise investigations.”

EnCase Big Data Investigator is available now.