In 2023 Atola Technology celebrated 20 years since it was founded by Dmitry Postrigan and his partner at the time Fedir Nepyivoda. Our core team has just given an interview to Forensic Focus about some of our history, our process today, and Atola’s plans for the future:
So, what else happened? In 2023 we launched our new flagship product, released 6 software updates, held a record number of meetings with customers, hired great new talents, and are already working on something new to share with you in 2024! Now, let’s take a closer look at what’s what.
Atola TaskForce 2
No doubt, our most exciting project and accomplishment of 2023 is TaskForce 2. We created the ultimate lab forensic imager to solve a few problems:
- image more drives simultaneously -> 26 sessions can be running simultaneously thanks to an even mightier hardware (16-core Xeon processor and custom-made server-grade motherboard)
- reassemble and image data from large RAID arrays, even with unknown configuration -> 16 SATA ports and additional RAID types supported
- image more NVMe drives -> 4 hot-plug NVMe ports with imaging speeds of 4.5 GB/sec each
- organize the drives -> device racks as a companion product compatible with server racks
Certainly, with TaskForce 2, integration with workflow automation tools like Magnet AUTOMATE makes even more sense. The existing Web API command set allows you to identify drives, make physical or logical imaging to a selected destination. We are planning to expand the range of commands in the upcoming releases to empower users to use the extensive functionality of TaskForce 2 as a part of their automated evidence processing routines.
The response of the industry has been overwhelmingly positive and the new system has been in high demand literally from the day of the launch, with many organizations getting the previous generation of TaskForce for in-the-field work and the new TaskForce 2 for their labs.
The multi-imaging, multi-user system that still can work with such vast range of devices including damaged media, brings a huge enhancement and optimization for the labs processing large amounts of data.
TaskForce firmware updates
An unknown configuration of a RAID 6 detected and the array reassembled despite 2 device missing
The 2023 firmware releases 2023.4 and 2023.10 brough
- an improved speed of imaging to forensic files
- more convenient and faster use of a remote Work Folder
- support of RAID 6 reassembly and imaging, even with 2 corrupt or missing devices
- expanded information in diagnostics and more detailed status indication for NVMe devices
- and other great enhancements.
The latest 2023.11 release brought the a cool new feature: change the order and layout of task icons the way that works best for your flow. Just drag and drop as you see fit!
Insight Forensic software updates
From searching to cryptocurrency artifacts and introduction of Sanitize and Format NVM commands for secure NVMe wiping to improved UX and optimized performance, the April’s 5.3 release brought many novelties.
The 5.4 release, in its turn, included 35 new features and bugfixes including a revamped Disk Editor for faster byte search, reading and editing, plus an ability to detect multiple ambiguous file systems within the same partition. This feature is brand new and unique to the industry!
New stuff coming!
Our software and hardware teams have successfully completed TaskForce 2 development in summer 2023. Now, a new project is underway, and we can’t wait to roll it out to you!
Something’s brewing
Celebrating partners
2023 was a year like no other in terms of our close cooperation with our partners and resellers around the globe. We have held many joint events and supported users together. We thank you for being our reliable channels of communication and support to the customers worldwide!
Hardware
What a busy year for our hardware department! TaskForce 2 was launched in July and the assembly engineers had their hands full ever since. Here is to your to your incredible effort assembling and testing every single unit!
Team growth
In March, Dmytro, Nazar and Yaroslav joined Atola. Nazar and Yaroslav have become great new additions to our software development team, while Dmytro has brought his expertise to strengthen our hardware department.
Olexander and Tetiana joined us in November. Olexander has overtaken the role of the Software Team Lead, Tetiana as a Product Manager. We are excited to greet them on board and look forward to great new accomplishments together!
Conferences
We saw a substantial increase in the number of conferences. The attendees are also participating in pre-COVID numbers. We traveled far and near to a variety of events from expos and government workshops to forensic science conferences. Here is a map of conferences visited by our team alone. We thank our partners who reached the regions where we could not fly this year. We are planning to expand this geography further!
Meetings with customers
In 2023 we held a few dozen meetings with customers, which encompassed training, customer interviews, demo and support sessions. With the world returning to the offline gatherings, we use every opportunity to communicate in person and it has given us great insights that inform our innovation process. We look forward to more of the same in 2024!
Team time
We worked hard and played harder this year. No matter the circumstances around us, feeling the support of our teammates is encouraging and inspiring to us. In 2023, we worked and innovated, trained and learned, attended art events, volunteered and partied together. Thank you, Atola people, for keeping up the high standards when you work and being fun, sincere and compassionate humans every time it matters!
Relief for Ukraine
The war brought to Ukraine more devastation in 2023, which touched all Ukrainians but especially the people on the frontline, refugees and vulnerable groups. Our teammates continued to donate to initiatives in both humanitarian and defense fields, while the company supported an orphanage and veteran businesses during the year.
We encourage you to be a part of the effort to help Ukraine achieve peace and rebuild. There are dozens of great organizations out there. Here are just a few of them:
Happy 2024!
Yulia believes that with a product that is exceptionally good at solving tasks of forensic experts, marketing is about explaining its capabilities to the users. Yulia regularly represents Atola at DFIR events, holds free workshops and webinars about Atola imagers functionality and advocates on the users' behalf to ensure that Atola keeps on adding value and raising the bar for the industry.
- Top digital forensic conferences in 2024 - January 1, 2024
- 2023. Year in Review - December 31, 2023
- Top digital forensics conferences in 2023 - January 1, 2023
Yulia Samoteykina
Director of Marketing Yulia believes that with a product that is exceptionally good at solving tasks of forensic experts, marketing is about explaining its capabilities to the users. Yulia regularly represents Atola at DFIR events, holds free workshops and webinars about Atola imagers functionality and advocates on the users' behalf to ensure that Atola keeps on adding value and raising the bar for the industry.
