Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR)

What are digital forensics and incident response (DFIR)?

What is Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR)?

Digital forensics and incident response (DFIR) is the science of gathering, preserving, analyzing, and presenting digital information and evidence in a legal context. 

How do you know what this means to you? 

DFIR is not just an issue for law enforcement. This field is relevant to corporate security professionals, government employees, and military officers and contractors. Also, anyone who relies on digital information to communicate or to conduct business.

DFIR is the science of gathering, preserving, analyzing, and presenting digital evidence in a legal context. Moreover, digital forensics can be about investigating crime. Or it can be about investigating breaches that may lead to litigation or prosecution. The process requires a forensic examiner to apply investigative skills to seek answers to specific questions like:

• What happened?
• Who did it?
• And why did they do it?

To do that, the examiner takes on the role of a detective. They have to observe the scene of the crime. So they have to collect evidence from that scene for further analysis.

• They have to interview witnesses who were connected with the incident.
• They have to look for patterns in past cases with similar characteristics.
• And they have to think like a criminal or hacker to solve the case.

Why is DFIR relevant today?

Information is power, but information security isn’t just about preventing other people from stealing your information or your intellectual property – it’s also about protecting yourself from loss of reputation or loss of revenue if your information security fails. 

Digital forensics can help you assess whether your information systems are secure enough. Not only against external threats but also against internal threats. That is, whether your employees are accessing confidential information they shouldn’t access. Because they’re abusing their privileges or because their computer are in compromise by malware that’s providing unauthorized access.

Why DFIR Matters in Cybersecurity

Digital forensics and incident response (DFIR) is an important area of cyber security because of a growing awareness that cybercrime is real and it’s a treat everyone needs to be prepared for. 

There are many stories today about high-profile cyber attacks that targeted large corporations as well as small businesses, media outlets, government agencies, and even individuals—and affected millions of customers, employees, and citizens. Digital forensics can help you protect yourself against these kinds of attacks by demonstrating how attacks happened so you can take steps to prevent them in the future.

Moreover, DFIR can also be about dealing with not only external threats but also internal threats. Whether your employees are abusing their privileges to access the information they shouldn’t access or whether your machine has been compromised by malware that’s providing unauthorized access. 

Digital forensics and incident response (DFIR) can help you assess whether your information systems are secure enough not only against external threats but also against internal threats.

Final Thoughts

Digital forensics and incident response (DFIR) can also be about dealing with not only external threats but also internal threats. 

Whether your employees are abusing their privileges to access the information they shouldn’t access or whether your machine has been compromised by malware that’s providing unauthorized access. Digital forensics and incident response (DFIR) can help you assess whether your information systems are secure enough not only against external threats but also against internal threats.