Digital forensics and incident response is a combined set of cybersecurity operations that incident response teams use to detect, investigate and respond to cybersecurity events.
As the acronym implies, DFIR integrates digital forensics and incident response processes.
The goal of digital forensics is to gather all the data needed to accurately determine what happened during a specific security incident and preserve it as digital evidence.
Digital forensics helps incident responders identify the root cause of an incident, understand how attackers gained access to the system and discern which systems were affected.
Digital forensics is sometimes referred to as computer forensics or cyber forensics.
Incident response is the approach an organization takes to respond to and mitigate the effects of a security incident, such as a malware attack or data breach.
Effective incident response requires a well-vetted incident response plan, incident response playbooks and a combination of tools to detect, contain and eradicate threats, as well as recover and restore systems.
An incident response team is also referred to as a computer security incident response team, computer incident response team or computer emergency response team.
Many security operations center teams also handle incident response processes.
In short, digital forensics is concerned with the collection and analysis of data to fully understand what happened in an incident and preserve that data, while incident response is concerned with the remediation of the incident.
The combination of these two separate and distinct sets of operations provides an incident response team an integrated approach, including the data, tools, processes and capabilities needed, to remediate and recover from cyberattacks.
DFIR is often conducted by an in-house incident response team composed of incident responders, security analysts, threat researchers and forensic analysts.
Before an incident occurs, incident response teams should write an incident response plan.
This step also includes conducting tabletop exercises to test how well the playbooks and incident response plan perform, as well as revising or updating them as necessary.
Threat detection tools, such as endpoint detection and response, extended detection and response, and security orchestration and automation, help incident response teams discover potential cybersecurity issues.
Data forensics also enables scoping of the incident to assess the breadth, severity and root cause of the incident.
The added information provided by digital forensics enables security teams to have a better, more accurate understanding of an incident by taking into account what happened.
Digital forensics and incident response tools are available as platforms organizations can run themselves or buy as managed services, or they can be a combination of existing services and tools.
If selecting a managed service, look for providers with qualified DFIR experts and incident responders.
Some DFIR services and tools specialize in proactive threat hunting and assessments, while others focus on reactive incident investigation.
This Cyber News was published on www.techtarget.com. Publication date: Fri, 26 Jan 2024 16:13:03 +0000