Fraud, Breach and Regulatory Evidence for Banks, Broker Dealers and Fintech
Financial Services Forensics That Explains the Transaction Record
Fraud inside a financial institution rarely lives in one place; it is spread across core banking records, trading and clearing systems, email, phones and personal accounts. Global Digital Forensics pulls that record into one sourced chronology that shows who acted, when and through which system, and tests the controls that should have stopped it. The findings are written so a board, a regulator and a court can each act on them, and the first call with a senior examiner is free.
For banks, insurers, broker dealers and fintech
Core Forensic and Security Services for Financial Institutions
Pick the group that matches the question in front of you. Each link opens a service page with the evidence involved, the method and the deliverables.
Regulatory evidence
Technical evidence organized for NYDFS Part 500 and related examinations.
Adversarial testing
Penetration testing, vulnerability assessment, application and source code review.
Fraud, insider risk and incident response
Fraud reconstruction, account takeover analysis, incident response SLAs and executive conduct examinations.
Board & M&A cyber risk
Board briefings and cyber due diligence for acquisitions and fintech partnerships.
The initial consultation is free, and a senior examiner sets the plan with you on the first call.
Why institutions call us
Where Financial Fraud Hides, and Why Institutions Have Called Us
Fraud inside a financial institution is rarely a single event. It is a pattern spread across core banking records, trading and clearing systems, email, messaging, mobile devices and personal accounts, and reconstructing it requires evidence handling that will hold if the matter proceeds to termination, arbitration, regulatory referral or prosecution. Account takeover, business email compromise and payment redirection add a second layer, because identity, authorization, business process and software weakness can each be the cause, and the examination has to test the records rather than assume one.
Global Digital Forensics has served financial institutions since 1992. Founder Joseph Caruso, CISSP, began his technology career in 1980, a career that spans real time transaction systems and mainframe databases, and his matter experience includes shareholder litigation involving credit card transaction and deposit systems and a consumer class action involving reservation architecture, real time transactions and source code. Robert Knudsen, CISSP and Certified Computer Examiner, brings eighteen years of forensic casework in federal and state court matters. Our examiners have testified in federal and state courts, our work has been accepted by courts, and the expert practice most often serves Fortune 1000 and AmLaw 100 clients.
Dependence on a small number of vendors also needs review. Core processors, payment platforms, cloud providers and outsourced technology functions mean that an institution’s effective attack surface is largely other companies’ environments, and the records that prove what happened often sit with a processor or a clearing firm that is not a party. Knowing how to ask for those records, in what format and with what validation, is as much a part of the engagement as the examination itself.
Describe the institution and the deadline on the first call and we will name the examiner who would do the work and testify.
Scoping
Accounts, Insider Activity and Closing Retention Windows
- Which accounts, devices and transaction systems hold the record of the disputed activity, and who controls each one?
- Can insider activity be distinguished from credential misuse on the logs that still exist?
- Which retention windows are about to close on the evidence that matters?
- What does the examiner’s finding mean for regulatory notification, customer remediation and any suspicious activity filing?
- How will the analysis be explained to a regulator, an auditor and, if it comes to that, a court?
How we help
Fraud Reconstruction, Governance Review and Authentication From One Team
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Digital Forensics and Expert Witness Testimony
Internal fraud examination, evidence preservation and reports and testimony from the examiner who did the work.
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Executive Cyber Risk Advisory
Independent program and governance review reported to the board and the audit committee in terms they can act on.
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Cyber Due Diligence
Third party and acquisition risk review for portfolio purchases, fintech partnerships and vendor onboarding.
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AI & Deepfake Analysis
Voice and video authentication where a payment instruction or an identity claim is disputed.
Context
The Regulatory Context Your Evidence Has to Serve
- GLBA Safeguards Rule
- The safeguards obligation requires a documented information security program with risk assessment, oversight and service provider management, all of which have to be evidenced rather than asserted.
- SEC cybersecurity disclosure rules
- Public registrants must disclose material cybersecurity incidents and describe risk management, strategy and governance, which puts a premium on a fast and defensible materiality analysis built on what the systems actually recorded.
- FFIEC guidance
- Examiners assess cyber program maturity, resilience and third party oversight against published interagency expectations, and the technical record is what turns a policy into evidence.
- Suspicious activity reporting
- Examinations of internal fraud frequently intersect with reporting obligations, so evidence is preserved in a form that supports both the internal decision and any subsequent filing.
We produce the technical findings and evidence that your compliance officers, auditors and examiners rely on, organized around the regime that applies.
Unsure which of these regimes your evidence has to serve first? Put the question to a senior examiner, free, before the record is organized the wrong way.
Related case study
Executive Level Financial Fraud at a Bank
When an audit committee at a publicly traded bank questioned loans and expenses tied to directors and officers, GDF examined laptops, desktops, Exchange email and voicemail systems alongside the forensic accountants and recovered digital artifacts the paper record did not show.
Financial Fraud
From the Disputed Transaction to the Signed Report
Start by identifying the account owner, the approved payment change procedure, the affected transactions, the source systems, their retention and the person authorized to export each record. We agree with counsel how confidential customer and counterparty information will be minimized before anything is collected, and a senior examiner discusses all of it in a free first consultation.
The chronology we build shows a mailbox sign in, a payment instruction and an approval record on separate source rows, with the time zone of each clock and any missing log noted beside it. Shared accounts, forwarded messages and records held by a bank or vendor are checked separately before any conclusion about who authorized the payment, and the report sorts observed access, likely affected records and sources still to be obtained so you can see exactly where the proof stands.
Scale does not change the method. In the Massive Securities Fraud matter, GDF worked with counsel to identify which clearing firm held ten years of trades in a few hundred securities, found that the firm’s own decompression routine had corrupted its first export, obtained a corrected set and rebuilt the trading application so the legal team and its experts could examine the brokerage’s activity. In the Massive Financial Fraud matter, more than fifty million transaction records sat with a third party processor, and GDF mapped how the data flowed and designed a sample based approach the parties could evaluate instead of collecting every record. An organized record gives damages experts a clean foundation to build the calculation on.
Notification and regulatory decisions rest on facts, so we make sure the people who make them have seen the evidence first, with NYDFS scope and exemptions checked against the actual covered entity.
Gather records before an engagement
Gather the Records Before the Regulator Asks
These guides help compliance officers, legal and IT teams identify the entity details, system records and private information inventories a review will need, assign an owner to each source and write down the questions for the specialist who will answer them.
Every guide is free to read online. A download asks for a work email and company, which you may skip, and the file starts immediately.
Discuss your evidence and deadline
NYDFS 23 NYCRR Part 500 Audit Preparation
Gather entity details, policy records, system evidence and the questions a Part 500 specialist will ask before the filing season.
File: ZIP: guide and editable CSV checklists.
New York SHIELD Act Private Information Preparation
Map private information, safeguards, service providers and incident records so a privacy or breach review starts from a known inventory.
File: ZIP: guide and editable CSV checklists.
Browse all preparation packages by subject.
If the records are scattered across a core processor and two vendors, bring what you have to a senior examiner and we will say which gaps matter before you download anything.
Talk with an examiner
Bring the Disputed Transaction to a Senior Examiner
Tell us the institution, the systems involved and the deadline, whether it comes from a board, an examiner or a court. A senior examiner will call or write back promptly to check conflicts and outline the scope, and the first conversation is free.
Global Digital Forensics has worked for financial institutions since 1992, with court tested examiners, sixteen US offices and a hotline answered 24/7.
Reviewed by Joseph Caruso, Founder, CEO and CTO, CISSP. Last reviewed .