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Social media investigations

Preserve and collect social media data

As fast as people can post to social media, they can also erase.

Social media investigations are an increasingly popular tool used in civil and criminal cases, lawsuits and government examinations. But social media data can be exceptionally challenging to preserve and collect, which is why you need trained professionals and specialized tools to pull data in a legal, ethical and defensible manner.

How Wipfli can help

Wipfli’s fraud and forensics team can support your case by preserving unique metadata and digital fingerprints of everything collected, including logs of how data was obtained.

Wipfli can help with searches of posts, status updates, public, group, and direct messaging, photos and videos, location tags, and other posted content within the:

  • Surface web: Also known as the visible web and indexed web, it is the area of the internet — such as Instagram or LinkedIn — that most users are familiar with. It is available to the general public and searchable.
  • Deep web: These are the areas of the internet that are not readily searchable or indexed, such as government databases or chat platforms. Most require authentication to access.
  • Dark web: Also known as the darknet or hidden web, these areas are best known for illicit activity with a focus is on anonymity. Sites are only accessible with specialized tools and direct knowledge of existing sites.

With deep experience in open-source intelligence (OSINT), incident response and digital forensic investigations, Wipfli’s seasoned professionals work with your organization’s staff to identify the data that you need to collect.