In the USA data mining is getting more important as a task since companies have been
faced with the negative publicity created by high-profile fraud cases that caused damage to
USA businesses. PwC, a company specializing in detection of potential or actual fraudulent
activities in the business world, calls data mining the ‘‘DNA of forensic or investigative
accountant’’ (Murphy, 2007). Their research has shown that although the Sarbanes-Oxley
Act required companies to implement antifraud mechanisms that would enable them to
discover in time ‘‘the smoking gun’’ in their vicinity, they have not done so despite the
abundance of electronic data which they already have stored on their servers.