Introduction
As cyber threats continue to rise, it’s essential for organizations to strengthen their response capabilities. Attackers thoroughly analyze and understand your network and may even know your defense strategies. This underscores the importance of expert intervention through digital forensics and incident response (DFIR ) to help evaluate and mitigate incidents.
What is Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR)?
DFIR encompasses two main parts:
- Digital forensics (DF): Digital forensics is a branch of forensic science focusing on the methods for identifying, acquiring, processing, analyzing, and storing electronic evidence. Digital evidence is a crucial part of hi-tech crime investigations performed by law enforcement.
- Incident response (IR): Incident response is a multi-step process of identifying, localizing, and eliminating cybersecurity incidents. For the purposes of IR, a cyber incident can be defined as any event that compromises information confidentiality, integrity, and/or availability—core principles of information security that are often referred to as the “CIA triad.”
DFIR professionals use various tools and techniques to collect, analyze, and report on digital evidence, including computer forensics, network forensics, and incident response. They may be called upon to investigate cyber crimes, determine the root cause of the incident, restore the incident timeline and kill chain using the MITRE ATT&CK ® matrix, and provide an affected organization with a proper incident response plan.
What does the Digital Forensics and Incident Response include?
Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR) covers a wide range of activities in the context of a security incident or investigation. Some specific areas that DFIR may cover include:
- Computer forensics: This involves the analysis of computer systems and devices to identify and extract digital evidence in a forensically sound manner. This may consist of examining the contents of hard drives, analyzing system and application logs, and reviewing network traffic data.
- Network forensics: This consists of analyzing network traffic and other data collected from network devices to identify and extract digital evidence. This may involve probing packets captured from the network, analyzing firewall logs, and reviewing web server logs.
- Incident response: This consists of identifying, containing, and remediating security incidents. The incident response may involve triaging an incident, collecting and preserving evidence, and conducting an analysis to determine the primary cause of the incident.
- Cyber crime investigations: This involves investigating cyber crimes such as hacking, fraud, identity theft, etc. DFIR professionals may be called upon to assist organizations, public or law enforcement agencies, etc. in these investigations.
- Data breaches: This involves the analysis of incidents where sensitive or confidential data has been accessed or compromised. DFIR professionals may be called upon to assist organizations in identifying the cause of the breach, determining the extent of the compromise, and taking appropriate action to prevent further damage.
Intellectual property theft: It is the investigation of incidents where intellectual property, such as trade secrets or proprietary information, has been accessed or stolen. DFIR professionals may be called upon to assist organizations in identifying the cause of the theft, determining the extent of the compromise, and taking appropriate action to prevent further damage.
Why do organizations need DFIR?
When businesses face a cyberattack, their primary focus is on recovering quickly. However, it’s equally crucial to dive deeper into the details of the incident and understand its causes and methods.DFIR (Digital Forensics and Incident Response) provides critical insight through a detailed process where the experts analyze your entire infrastructure to uncover attack vectors, attackers, their techniques, tactics, and procedures while suggesting measures to strengthen security in the process.
The primary objective of digital forensics is to collect and safeguard evidence that can assist in prosecuting cybercriminals.
Organizations typically turn to digital forensics for four key purposes:
- To verify the occurrence of a cyberattack.
- To comprehensively grasp the extent of a cyber incident’s impact.
- To determine the root cause of a cyberattack.
- To amass evidence substantiating the fact that a cyberattack indeed took place.
The next steps are taken by incident responders who offer support in counteracting attackers, develop customized remediation plans, and provide guidance to technical, legal, and PR teams, ensuring a coordinated response.
Post-incident, the professionals continue to monitor the network for any residual threats, offering expert guidance to support legal and PR efforts in the aftermath of the incident.
In addition to these services, we offer proactive incident response through Red Teaming exercises. While many external Red Team units focus solely on achieving client-defined goals, our approach goes further.
How do you choose the right DFIR service provider?
Experience: Opt for providers with proven expertise in handling diverse cases and geographies.
Technology: Look for providers equipped with advanced technologies to expedite digital forensics and incident response. Even when armed with top-tier human expertise, lacking appropriate technological tools can lead to extended timelines, translating into financial losses. For instance, having the capability to monitor your network and beyond, including the activities involving your data on the dark web stands as a strong example of such a technological edge.
Forensics and Investigation Capabilities: A provider’s ability to retrieve and handle forensic evidence, and identify threat actors, their hidden motives, and tools can significantly impact the outcome of the incident.
Processes: At every phase of incident response, ensure value is delivered. It’s beyond mere reports; your team should gain knowledge, and enhance coordination.
Communication: Clear communication is essential for effective collaboration. All instructions and guidelines must be fast and clear. All findings during IR will be useless if your team does not understand IR experts or can’t follow instructions.
DFIR with Group-IB
Cybersecurity incidents require an immediate, thorough response that ensures the event is contained, the threat is remediated, and any weaknesses addressed. Group-IB’s intelligence-driven approach to incident response enables the company to offer immediate and professional emergency support 24/7 to affected organizations, minimizing the impact and downtime of cyber attacks.
Since 2003, Group-IB has responded to more than 1,300 incidents of all complexities, racking up more than 70,000 hours of hands-on IR experience. Group-IB’s DFIR team of highly-qualified specialists conducts more than 200 engagements annually, and the company’s experts have assisted organizations in multiple key verticals, including banking, manufacturing, energy, and government to respond to ransomware attacks, APT breaches, and many other threats.
This year, Group-IB’s services have been recognized by Gartner in their Market Guide for Digital Forensics and Incident Response Services, which is the third time in a row. Our team combines the expertise of Digital Forensics (to help with forensics acquisition, create forensic images, and analyze artifacts to reconstruct attacker’s techniques) and Incident Responders, adversary-centric Threat Intelligence, and Malware Reverse Engineers, who work collaboratively through a structured approach that starts with:
Preparation: We assist in implementing the necessary technologies, crafting effective incident response plans, providing training, and conducting tabletop exercises to simulate various scenarios.
During an Incident: Support is deployed to swiftly counteract attackers, develop customized remediation plans, and provide guidance to technical, legal, and PR teams, ensuring a coordinated response.
Post-Incident: We continue to monitor the network for any residual threats, offering expert guidance to support legal and PR efforts in the aftermath of the incident.
To understand the complete scope of the DFIR services offered by Group-IB or to seek immediate assistance in matters of an incident, reach out to our experts here.