What Is DFIR? Digital Forensics & Incident Response

We all know how often attackers gain access to online devices to compromise security. That’s why digital defense is as important as physical defense. However, ensuring digital safety can be more challenging than physical safety. To overcome this problem, authorities combine digital forensics with incident response. But what does this mean?

Digital forensics and incident response (DFIR) is a collective process in which the investigation team uses different tools to understand the incident and respond to it. 

Let's understand this in detail and see the key steps involved in the DFIR framework. We’ll also look at its benefits and some challenges to be aware of.

Defining digital forensics & incident response (DFIR)

DFIR is a framework that investigates and responds to security vulnerabilities. It is divided into two parts — digital forensics and incident response.

Digital forensics uncovers digital evidence, identifies the attackers, and determines how and when the incident occurred. The incident response phase eliminates threats to recover data with minimal or no damage.

Here’s why this framework is becoming invaluable with the increasing number of cyber threats:

• Helps companies understand how they were attacked
• Determines what information was or may have been stolen
• Prevents future attacks using lessons learned
• Supports legal cases with real evidence

A top resource for the cybersecurity community takes its name directly from this practice: The DFIR Report.

Types of digital forensics

Depending on the type of digital forensics, the data you need to investigate and the incident response plan you prepare will vary. As a result, every time you conduct a digital forensic, you may have to take a different approach. So, let’s understand the most common forensic types:

Disk forensics lets you examine hard drives, computer systems, and firmware. Its goal is to create forensic images that can be submitted to the court.

Wireless forensics allows you to analyze data transmitted over a wireless network. This helps investigate the involvement of wireless networks in illegal activities such as:

• Wardriving: scanning for Wi-Fi networks from a moving vehicle to find vulnerabilities.
• War flying: using drones to search for open Wi-Fi networks.

Email forensics extracts the sender's name, address, and server information to recover deleted emails because, sometimes, deleted emails serve as evidence of digital crimes.

Network forensics investigates network security for data breaches. Here, you collect information about communication devices, application servers, and log files.

(Related reading: computer forensics & cyber forensics.)

Steps involved in the DFIR framework

Since DFIR takes a structured approach to investigate and mitigate security breaches, it involves multiple stages. The key steps involved are:

Step 1. Collect data and identify the threat

The first step is to gather data and monitor systems for signs of a potential threat. Key areas to investigate include:

• User accounts
• Mobile phones
• USB drive
• Web browser
• Apps and servers
• RAM

During this phase, make sure to examine all online devices and connected systems to detect suspicious activities or indicators of compromise. Once you've identified the affected areas, isolate the compromised devices. By isolating infected systems, you can prepare a risk mitigation plan and block attack vectors to avoid similar vulnerabilities in the future.

Step 2. Analyze the threat

Now, analyze the threat type and its impact. It can be a phishing or DDoS attack, which may result in financial loss or reputational damage. For example, you detected a phishing attack, which led to financial loss. Based on this, the court will hopefully determine a guilty verdict for the cyberattacks.

Step 3. Mitigation and recovery

Once you've analyzed the threat, prepare a mitigation and recovery plan. Mitigation minimizes further damage and reduces the risk of future incidents, while recovery restores system, data, and business operations to their normal state.

Here's what a mitigation plan looks like:

• Teaching staff how they should handle financial transactions to avoid loss.
• Incorporating different message authentication tools.
• Using VPNs and strong passwords to limit unnecessary access.

By combining these mitigation measures with a structured recovery strategy, you can address the immediate threat and strengthen your defenses against similar incidents in the future.

Step 4. Reporting

In the end, you prepare a post-incident report. This report should include all relevant details of the incident, such as:

• Nature of the threat
• Timeline of events
• Mitigation actions take

You can also summarize whether the attack was neutralized after mitigation or if further investigation is required to solve the issue. Once done, others can use this report to understand the vulnerability's behavior.

Benefits of digital forensics & incident response (DFIR)

Each phase — from identification to reporting — provides long-term advantages for improving cybersecurity practices. So, it’s important to understand these key benefits:

• Recover important data and funds: DFIR recovers the digital assets or funds hackers obtained illegally.
• Help law enforcement institutes: In 2023, the number of registered cyber complaints exceeded 880,000. To address these complaints and solve digital crimes, law enforcement authorities use DFIR.
• Detects threats early: On average, it takes 86 days to detect a threat. The longer the delay in threat detection, the easier it is for attackers to escape. That's why companies use DFIR, as it becomes easier to understand the pattern of digital attacks and detect the same threats in less time.
• Improve downtime: The average cost of downtime for big organizations is big: accounting for $49 million loss in revenue per downtime incident. To avoid these high costs, DFIR identifies threats and restores business operations to normal by minimizing downtime.
• Maintain public trust: When an organization faces vulnerabilities, it loses public and customer trust. DFIR best practices can help catch the culprits to ensure transparency and maintain their trust.

Challenges with DFIR

While DFIR has many benefits, it is not without its challenges. Despite the structured approach used in the process, organizations often face hurdles that complicate their effectiveness. Let’s look at some of these challenges:

Privacy issues

The investigation teams require access to login details, financial records, and employee communication. When you share data with external experts, it puts your online assets at risk. In case of data loss, you may be unable to hold the culprit accountable.

(Related reading: data loss prevention.)

Large amount of data

The investigation team deals with large data volumes when investigating a big enterprise. They have to examine different data types, including email accounts, system logs, media files, and web browser histories. This sheer volume, however, is overwhelming: it seems impossible to review hundreds of email addresses and other data.

For example, in the case of a bank's DFIR, you must sift through thousands of financial transactions, login records, and employee access logs, which is quite time-consuming.

This means as the size of an organization grows, so does the complexity of the digital evidence. That’s why it becomes increasingly difficult to find the root cause of the incident and respond promptly.

(See how Splunk helps you extract meaning from all this data.)

Lack of talent and technology

To carry out DFIR effectively, an organization needs qualified experts and advanced tools. However, many struggle to meet these requirements due to the global cybersecurity talent shortage. In 2023, it was projected that this shortage would reach 85 million workers and many businesses won’t have the qualified professionals to respond to incidents adequately.

In addition, the tools and software used for DFIR are not always up to date to address the latest threats. If you rely on obsolete technology, it may hinder thorough incident investigation and effective response.

(Related reading: today’s most common cybersecurity jobs.)

Compliance issues

Another big concern is compliance with DFIR. You rely on different tools and software to process digital forensics. However, you can face legal charges if the tools don’t comply with privacy laws and regulations.

For example, when investigating data breaches in healthcare, the DFIR may need access to patient records. So, you must ensure the investigation process complies with HIPAA regulations — otherwise your organization may face penalties.

(Related reading: regulatory compliance.)

Best practices for digital forensics and incident response (DFIR)

You now know the challenges, but there are ways that you can adopt to address these challenges:

• Limit data access: You shouldn't give everyone access to sensitive information. For example, give login details access to the authentication analysis team only.
• Train DFIR staff: Your DFIR staff may lack the skills needed to identify and respond to attacks. To overcome this problem, you must train them and also provide the opportunity to earn cyber certificates and take courses.
• Stay informed: Your investigation methods must be adaptable as new technologies emerge to address more threats efficiently.
• Ensure compliance: To avoid compliance issues, get permission from legal authorities and follow their rules. Also, make sure to document every step to prevent any issues in the future.

(Related reading: continuous compliance.)

DFIR implementation is challenging but worth it

DFIR helps investigate the increasing number of online crimes — however, its implementation can be tricky. The lack of standardized datasets can make the reliability of evidence questionable in court, and faulty tools can also affect the accuracy of the analysis. So, to make DFIR work better and be trusted, organizations must fix these issues. Despite this, DFIR is still an important measure: after all, online attacks keep getting worse.