When the breach happens, minutes matter.

Petronella Technology Group is a North Carolina digital forensics practice led by a Licensed Digital Forensic Examiner (NC DFE #604180) with 24+ years investigating data breaches, ransomware, business email compromise, insider threats, and crypto fraud. We combine the technical depth of a federal-grade lab with the speed of a 24/7 incident response team.

Every engagement starts with one goal: preserve evidence before it is destroyed, then build a defensible case. Our work is used by counsel, insurance carriers, regulators, and federal agents. When the matter goes to trial, we testify - in North Carolina state court, federal court, and regulatory hearings.

Memory contents, encryption keys, attacker shell sessions, and live network connections vanish on the first power cycle. Logs roll over. Cloud audit trails expire in 7 to 90 days. Mobile devices auto-wipe after a wrong PIN. By the time most companies call us, half the evidence is already gone.

Our 24/7 incident response team arrives ready to image RAM, isolate hosts on the wire, pull cloud audit logs before retention windows close, and lock down BYOD endpoints. For active extortion events, we coordinate with insurance breach counsel and ransomware negotiators - not in days, but in hours.

Incident types we handle end-to-end:

• Ransomware and double-extortion attacks.
• Business email compromise (BEC) and wire-fraud reconstruction.
• SIM-swap account takeover and crypto theft, covered end-to-end by our crypto forensics and scam recovery service.
• Insider data theft and IP exfiltration.
• HIPAA, PCI, and CMMC breach notification investigations.
• Mobile and BYOD compromise on iOS and Android.
• Cloud and SaaS account takeover including Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace.

For packet-level reconstruction, exfiltration tracing, and lateral-movement timelines, see our network forensics capability. For complex multi-device matters, our computer, server, and mobile forensics lab handles HDDs, SSDs, NVMe, RAID arrays, virtual disks, and encrypted volumes.

Forensic acquisition and analysis run on dedicated isolated forensic workstations that never touch client production networks, preserving chain-of-custody from the first image.

Every report we write follows NIST SP 800-86 and SWGDE best practices, with chain-of-custody documentation, validated tools (EnCase, Magnet AXIOM, Cellebrite, X-Ways, Volatility), and a methodology that survives Daubert challenges. Insurance carriers, attorneys, and federal investigators use our reports without rewriting them.

For attorneys, we work under third-party privilege engagements so findings stay protected. For regulated entities, our professional support forensics covers HIPAA medical breaches, PCI cardholder-data investigations, CPA fraud examinations, and insurance claim analysis.