Protect your business from human behavior risks

Any tool that enables employees to work together is a kind of collaboration tool. This included dedicated collaboration tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams, enterprise social media platforms like Microsoft Viva Engage (formerly Yammer) and Workplace from Meta, and frontline management tools such as WorkJam. Many other tools also have collaboration features built in, such as Zoom (via Zoom Team Chat) and Google Drive.  

Forensic search is a process that involves the use of forensic techniques to search conversations and collect electronic data that may be used as evidence in internal or external investigations. The process of conducting forensic research and investigations begins with identifying the electronic data that may be relevant, usually based on custodian, data, location, and data type. Within collaboration datasets, this data has historically proven difficult to access, but Aware’s automated search functionality brings forensic research to conversations in Slack, Teams, Zoom, and more.   

Organizations use federated search to investigate multiple databases or sources simultaneously and present the results from a single pane of glass. Federated search is particularly useful when searching lots of data or information stored in multiple databases. As over 90% of organizations use at least two collaboration tools (Slack, Teams, Zoom, etc.), federated search from Aware enables investigations into all locations simultaneously.    

Collaboration tools enable a range of features that make eDiscovery more complicated to perform. For example, collaboration messages can occur in public and private groups or direct messages. This hinders an investigator’s ability to search chat history because a user may have posted in locations that are not readily visible. To search collaboration messages effectively usually requires the use of a third-party tool. However, if that tool does not capture in real time a complete record of all revisions and deletions, spoilation is easy because custodians can always edit or remove their messages.   

Early case assessment (ECA) is an eDiscovery process that helps legal teams make informed decisions about how to approach a case by identifying key information to understand the scope and merits of a case and estimate potential costs. ECA can also help legal teams identify potential risks and opportunities, such as data privacy or regulatory compliance issues, and develop strategies to mitigate those risks. To approach early case assessment efficiently, investigators must be able to search collaboration messages and surface all relevant content and context. This requires permissions to search all messages, including private and direct messages. Full administrator privileges and/or a third-party eDiscovery platform that plugs into the collaboration tools are typically required to enable early case assessment in collaboration.   

Aware enables investigators to conduct any kind of eDiscovery investigation with federated search for collaboration messages from a centralized archive that contains a complete record of revisions and deletions, captured in real time.   

Aware exports eDiscovery and early case assessment results to .pdf, .dat, .csv and RSMF formats along with .txt files of every message and text base file. These exports are compatible with all major eDiscovery software, enabling legal teams to analyze  collaboration search results according to their usual workflows.   

Aware ingests collaboration messages from all major tools across the enterprise environment, then normalizes and infuses the data with AI/ML metadata insights designed for the nuances of collaboration. This ensures no loss of context and a complete, defensible record of all messages, including revisions and deletions. From the Aware platform, investigators can conduct federated search of collaboration messages within all tools simultaneously. Searches may be initiated by a range of variables, including custodian, location, message type, date and time, and other factors. Results can then be narrowed by enhanced insights such as sentiment or toxicity. This reduces the time to discovery by producing the most relevant results, delivered with complete context for better understand of who, what, where, when, how, and why.    

Performing eDiscovery in collaboration presents several challenges. Varying permissions regarding message visibility make it harder to surface a complete record of all chat messages. Custodians retain control of their messages after sending, meaning they can edit or delete what they wrote, even months afterward. This increases the likelihood of spoilation. And legacy eDiscovery tools cannot process non-standard message features such as emojis and gifs, leading to missing context. Aware solves for all these problems by ingesting collaboration messages in real time into a centralized archive built for the nuances of collaboration data. This reduces time to discovery and empowers faster eDiscovery search by producing only the most relevant results, without loss of context.   

The Aware data platform uses industry-leading natural language processing (NLP) capabilities to analyze collaboration conversations and infuse them with AI-powered metadata that provides the context business leaders need to protect their organizations and support the employee experience. Using Aware’s proprietary technology, organizations can retain control of information governance, retention, compliance adherence, insider threat hunting, and more across the entire collaboration ecosystem from a single, centralized platform.