Customer stories

City of Dallas

Texas city government accelerates information discovery with OpenText security solution. City of Dallas transforms digital forensics with OpenText EnCase for efficiency, productivity and time savings

Challenges

  • Identification and remediation of threats
  • Responding quickly to time-sensitive requests
  • Manual collection of data a time-consuming process

Results

  • Accelerated information discovery to easily collect data

  • Enabled and automated a comprehensive approach to data collection, review, processing and production

  • Increased efficiency, productivity and time savings

Story

One of the many departments responsible for critical tasks at the City of Dallas is a small team that collects data for forensic, cybersecurity, litigation and other investigations. Led by Tonya Derrick, senior security analyst, the team captures and delivers critical, sensitive and often urgently needed data stored in city employees’ computers or mobile devices. Requests for information come from across the organization, including the Open Records department, city attorneys, HR and even the Dallas Police Department. “We uncover all sorts of data—the missing needle-in-the-haystack kind of thing,” Derrick explained. “For open records, we’re identifying emails that either speak to or against what an employee or a citizen says that city staff did or did not do. For litigations, we are pulling documents and images to be able to create a paper trail of documents, so that if a claimant has filed a suit against the city, the attorneys are able to justify that information based on the data that we pulled.”

Abstract image of a lock floating out of a computer screen.

OpenText EnCase is the tool of choice because of the security in capturing the data. We are able to easily reach out via our remote connection and get information before it’s destroyed. We initially got OpenText EnCase so that we could do investigations, but it has branched out into us using it for litigations and open records.

Tonya Derrick
Senior Security Analyst, City of Dallas

Collecting the relevant data was often a manual and time-consuming process that made it impossible to respond quickly to time-sensitive requests. For example, the city’s Open Records department fields public records requests, both internal and external. Derrick’s team retrieves the requested information, which might include documents and email from an employee’s computer, often captured in a personal storage file (PST). Derrick explained, “For open records requests, we do pull PSTs. But having to make a copy of a staff member’s PST and then go through that individually was an all-day process. With open records for the State of Texas, we have a 10-day turnaround. So, when you have a hot topic going on, and you have maybe 15 or 20 custodians, that goes over 10 days easily.”

The team needed a solution to help accelerate and automate its digital investigation process. OpenText™ EnCase™, part of the OpenText Security Suite, was the solution of choice, providing 360-degree visibility across laptops, desktops and servers for proactive discovery of sensitive data, identification and remediation of threats, as well as forensically sound data collection and investigation. Derrick commented, “OpenText EnCase is the tool of choice because of the security in capturing the data. We are able to easily reach out via our remote connection and get information before it’s destroyed. We initially got OpenText EnCase so that we could do investigations, but it has branched out into us using it for litigations and open records.”

The City of Dallas has seen dramatic time-savings since deploying the EnCase solution. Derrick reported that the process of pulling PST files, once a manual, time-consuming process, has been completely transformed. “When I first started, we were loading those PSTs onto our machines and going through every email in that PST file and saving those down to message files,” recalled Derrick. “Now, we use OpenText EnCase to take an image of that machine, and we isolate only the PST file instead of getting the entire file.” She added, “OpenText EnCase has really just made tremendous strides for us. We’re able to simply go to the person’s PC, capture that information, do a quick search of it and be done with it. It really, really helped us out a lot in that aspect.”

Time savings is a huge benefit for us, especially with open records. What I like the most about OpenText EnCase is that I am able to set the case up, press the button and it’ll go out and start capturing data for me. I don’t have to sit there and watch it.

Tonya Derrick
Senior Security Analyst, City of Dallas

The team also uses the EnCase solution now to fulfil information requests from the city attorney to support litigation needs. “When we’re working on a litigation, we’re able to use OpenText EnCase to catch a full forensic image of that machine and pull it into a separate tool so that we can cull it, index it, process it and get it back out,” said Derrick.

Collecting data for public records requests, litigation or HR investigations is a crucial function at the City of Dallas. With EnCase, the city has been able to greatly reduce time-consuming tasks to efficiently collect potentially relevant data in a forensically sound and defensible manner from all devices, sources and locations across the organization. “Time-savings is a huge benefit for us, especially with open records,” explained Derrick. “What I like the most about OpenText EnCase is that I am able to set the case up, press the button and it’ll go out and start capturing data for me. I don’t have to sit there and watch it.”

About City of Dallas

One of the largest cities in Texas, the City of Dallas employs approximately 15,000 individuals who are responsible for city services ranging from road works and emergency services to water utilities and parks and recreation. Serving a population of more than one million residents, the city adheres to its core values of empathy, ethics, excellence and equity.

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