Computer Investigators Trace Digital Fingerprints

A wall of Erin Nealy Cox's office is covered with framed milestones: her law degree from Southern Methodist University, a seal from the U.S. attorney's office in the Northern District of Texas autographed by former colleagues. There are plaques from the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Postal Service and the FBI thanking her for helping convict bad guys in big cases.

"I jokingly call it the 'I love me wall,' " says Ms. Nealy Cox, who spent 10 years as a federal prosecutor.

The former assistant U.S. attorney was so adept at computer hacking and intellectual property that the feds chose her for a nationwide SWAT team that hunts down and prosecutes cyber-criminals.

Now, as managing director of Stroz Friedberg LLC's new Dallas office, the 38-year-old hopes to do for the for-profit world what she did for the public good: recover information thought to be lost to delete keys or hidden in cyberspace.

Think of it as CSI: Corporate America, and Ms. Nealy Cox as chief investigator Horatio Caine.