Cybersecurity Investigation for Individuals & Small Businesses

Cell Phone Digital Forensics — What Can Actually Be Recovered?

Most people think that when you delete a text message or a photo, it's gone forever. It's not. When you delete something on a phone, the operating system simply marks that storage space as "available" — the actual data often stays intact until new data overwrites it. A skilled forensic examiner can recover it.

Here's what we can typically extract from a smartphone forensic examination:

• Deleted SMS, MMS, and RCS text messages
• WhatsApp, iMessage, Signal, and Telegram chat histories (including deleted messages)
• Call logs — incoming, outgoing, missed, and deleted
• Photos and videos, including content deleted from camera rolls
• GPS location history and map searches
• App usage history and timestamps
• Browser history, bookmarks, and search queries
• Contact lists, including recently deleted contacts
• Email data from installed mail apps
• Social media activity stored on the device

Cyber Attacks on Individuals — You Don't Have to Be a Big Company to Be a Target

Most people think hackers only go after large corporations. The truth is the opposite. Individual people and small businesses are far easier targets because they rarely have security teams, firewalls, or monitoring tools. Attackers know this and specifically look for individuals and small businesses to exploit.

What Does a Cyber Attack on an Individual Look Like?

Here are the most common scenarios we investigate for individual clients:

• Email account compromise: Someone gains access to your Gmail, Outlook, or iCloud email — often to intercept password resets, monitor communications, or impersonate you.
• Social media account takeover: Your Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok account is stolen, often to run scams, extort you, or destroy your reputation.
• Identity theft: Your personal information is used to open accounts, apply for loans, or commit fraud in your name.
• Stalkerware installation: Someone physically accessed your phone and installed an app that secretly monitors your location, messages, and calls.
• SIM swapping: An attacker tricks your phone carrier into transferring your phone number to their SIM card, then uses it to bypass two-factor authentication on your bank and email accounts.

Small Business Cyber Attacks — The Threats That Can Shut You Down

For small businesses, a cyber attack isn't just inconvenient — it can be catastrophic. Here are the attacks we investigate most frequently for small business clients:

• Ransomware: Attackers encrypt all your files and demand payment to restore access. Even if you pay, there's no guarantee you'll get your data back. We investigate the attack vector, assess what was encrypted, and help with recovery planning.
• Business Email Compromise (BEC): An attacker compromises a company email account and impersonates an executive or vendor to trick employees into transferring money or sharing sensitive data. This is the most financially damaging type of cybercrime.
• Point-of-sale (POS) malware: Retail businesses and restaurants are common targets for malware that silently skims customer credit card data from payment terminals.
• Insider data theft: A departing employee downloads customer lists, proprietary files, or trade secrets before leaving. We document what was taken, when, and by whom.
• Network intrusion: An attacker gains persistent access to your business network and operates silently — watching, stealing data, or waiting for the right moment to strike.

Cloud Security Investigation — When Your Files Are Compromised

Cloud storage has made our lives easier but it has also created new attack surfaces. When someone accesses your cloud account without permission, the damage can be enormous — confidential business documents, client data, financial records, personal photos, and private communications can all be exposed or stolen.

Cloud platforms like Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Dropbox, and iCloud keep detailed access logs. These logs record every login — what IP address, what device, what time, and exactly what files were accessed or downloaded. Most users never look at these logs. We do.

A cloud security investigation by Xpozzed will tell you:

• Exactly when unauthorized access occurred and from where
• Which files were viewed, downloaded, copied, or deleted
• Whether the attacker shared your files with outside accounts
• Whether the breach was from an outside attacker or an insider
• The full timeline of the breach from first access to last activity

Romance Scams — The Anatomy of a Catfish Attack

Romance scams are one of the most emotionally devastating crimes we investigate. They work because they exploit genuine human need for connection. Here is how a typical romance scam unfolds — and how we dismantle it:

Stage 1 — The Approach

The scammer creates a fake profile using stolen photos of an attractive, successful-looking person — often a military officer, engineer, doctor, or businessperson working abroad. They reach out through dating apps, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn.

Stage 2 — Building Trust (Love Bombing)

They communicate intensively — sometimes multiple times a day. They are charming, attentive, and emotionally available in ways that feel almost too good to be true. They declare love quickly. They talk about a future together. They want to video call but always have an excuse not to.

Stage 3 — The Crisis and the Ask

After weeks or months, a "crisis" emerges — a medical emergency, a business deal gone wrong, being stuck overseas, customs fees on a package. They need money urgently. Just this once. They promise to pay it back immediately. They never do.

How We Trace Them

We use reverse image searches, metadata from photos they sent, IP geolocation from emails and messages, social media cross-referencing, and OSINT tools to build a real identity profile on the scammer. We document everything in a format that law enforcement and attorneys can use directly.

Exploit & Malware Investigation — The Hidden Attack You Can't See

Of all the ways someone can attack your digital life, exploits are the most alarming — because they require almost nothing from the victim. You don't have to click a phishing link. You don't have to open a bad attachment. A sophisticated exploit can compromise your device just from receiving a message or visiting a website.

What Is a Zero-Day Exploit?

Software companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft release security patches regularly. But between the time a vulnerability is discovered by an attacker and the time the company patches it, that vulnerability is "zero-day" — meaning the company has had zero days to fix it. Attackers use zero-days to compromise devices before any defense exists.

Stalkerware — Is Someone Monitoring Your Phone Right Now?

Stalkerware is a category of apps designed to hide completely on a device and secretly transmit the victim's location, messages, calls, and even microphone audio to an attacker. They are often installed by abusive partners, jealous ex-spouses, or controlling family members. The apps are designed to be invisible — they don't appear in the app list and don't show up in normal device settings.

Signs your phone may have stalkerware installed:

• Battery depleting much faster than normal
• Phone getting warm when not in active use
• Unusually high mobile data usage
• Someone in your life seems to know details from your private conversations
• Your location has been known to someone when you didn't share it

We perform a full forensic examination to detect, document, and preserve evidence of any stalkerware or spyware — including who installed it and when.