Manual evidence collection is overwhelmed! Automated DFIR (Digital Forensics and Incident Response) is the future

For decades, digital forensics work has continued to develop in different branches of judicial investigation and has become a very important part of global law enforcement activities. At the same time, due to the development of the Internet and globalization, the forms of crime are diversified, and law enforcement officials also need to use automated digital evidence collection tools to obtain key digital evidence and send criminals to prison.

Recently, the Magnet forensics research team released the latest research report on "Enterprise Digital Forensics and Incident Investigation (DFIR) Application Status". Report research believes that the digital forensics market has undergone great changes, which can be summarized in two words: speed and accuracy. Getting evidence of violations to investigators as quickly as possible is key to bringing cybercriminals to justice. However, this is not easy to achieve, and some practitioners in the field of digital forensics are already overwhelmed. Therefore, more automation technologies need to be incorporated into digital forensics workflows to achieve faster forensics while retaining a more complete chain of evidence.

Common DFIR Incidents and Challenges

According to research data from the report, data breaches and account theft will account for 35% of overall forensic activities in 2022 , is the most common DFIR incident, closely followed by business email breaches (34%). 14% of respondents said their organization frequently encounters BEC scams. Other common DFIR incidents include employee misconduct (33%), misuse of assets or policy violations (30%), internal fraud (29%) and endpoints infected with ransomware (28%).

##Proportion of DFIR incidents

Data leakage, account theft and Ransomware can have a huge impact on an organization's business development. DFIR investigators have a difficult time doing this because quickly investigating ransomware and data breaches requires experience and tools, and cybercriminals are trying to make these investigations even more difficult.

45% of respondents believe that “growing digital forensic needs and data volumes” are the biggest challenge affecting DFIR investigations, with 13% considering this to be a very serious issue , 32% think this is a serious problem.

On the other hand, as the scale and complexity of attacks continue to evolve, threat actors are using more techniques to make detection more difficult, with 42% of respondents DFIR personnel said evolving cyberattack techniques were a serious problem for their organizations to deal with. Keeping up with the evolution of new cyberattacks is undoubtedly a daunting challenge, and companies will need to rely more on research and development experts focused on equipping organizations with new, evolving tactics, techniques, and procedures.

Other key challenges include tools that fail to integrate with each other (37%), time-consuming and repetitive tasks (37%), and a lack of compliant licensing mechanisms to obtain data (34%) , proliferation of remote/hybrid working models (31%), difficulty in obtaining data from remote networks (31%), and lack of experts (30%)).

Proportion of challenging factors affecting DFIR investigations

Difficulties and challenges faced by DFIR

There are a large number of repetitive tasks in DFIR work, and there is an urgent need for automated tools to complete these investigation tasks. Many enterprise security operations centers already make heavy use of automation technology because they need to process massive amounts of security monitoring data. However, the automation capabilities required by DFIR are significantly different from security operations, because it mainly requires data acquisition and processing by orchestrating, executing and monitoring forensic workflows.

More than 50% of DFIR personnel interviewed said that there are still a large number of repetitive manual tasks in the current digital forensics workflow, and corporate investment in automation will have a significant impact on optimizing DFIR work. Very helpful; more than 20% of respondents said automation would be of significant value in remotely retrieving target endpoints, classifying target endpoints, processing digital evidence, and recording, summarizing, and reporting incidents.

64% of corporate DFIR practitioners believe that “investigation fatigue” is a real and objective problem (29% strongly agree with this, 35% somewhat agree), while 21% of respondents Respondents strongly expressed feelings of burnout in their daily work. The stress caused by the volume of investigations and data, as well as the need to run an incident response quickly, makes it difficult for these professionals to relax. In addition, 64% of the respondents said that recruiting suitable digital forensics talents is also a major challenge (30% strongly agree, 30% somewhat agree), because digital forensics work has certain industry attributes, and the requirements will also depend on the company’s business characteristics. Different and different.

DFIR Burnout and Recruitment Issues

The report’s research also shows that in the fast-growing field of DFIR, experienced and decisive leaders are needed to effectively formulate forensic strategies and make reasonable decisions. Allocating resources. More than 33% of respondents said strong leadership helps DFIR staff obtain the complete data sources they need, which is often difficult to achieve.

Report data shows that the biggest reasons for wasting DFIR resources are the lack of coherent incident forensics plans and work strategies (37%), and the lack of standardized processes (36%). Other factors include lack of access to data sources (35%), repetitive manual tasks (34%), and redundant and complex technology tools (28%).

Factors causing waste of resources

It should be pointed out in particular that regulatory compliance is also a problem faced by DFIR. a major challenge. 67% of DFIR personnel surveyed said their job roles would be affected by various new regulations, and 46% said they did not have enough time to fully understand the changing regulatory requirements. The DFIR team needs to have an accurate understanding of regulatory requirements and should consult with the company's legal department when necessary.

Recommendations for optimizing DFIR efforts

Businesses should invest in DFIR solutions that prioritize speed, accuracy, and completeness. When analyzing security incidents, more latency means greater risk. Therefore, companies should vigorously implement automation to help DFIR professionals reduce burnout and reduce investigation delays.

Every enterprise should reserve a useful automated digital forensic tool in advance. With the help of reliable digital forensic analysis tools, it can help forensic personnel obtain key digital evidence to investigate Criminals are punished.

In addition, it is also essential to formulate a DFIR plan in advance. The plan will clarify roles and responsibilities and detail how forensics and incident response need to be accomplished. It should also ensure the security and availability of critical forensic data sources through clear instructions and rules for accessing necessary data.

Finally, if the company’s internal team lacks complete DFIR investigation expertise, it can choose to outsource part of the DFIR investigation business. This is also the mainstream trend in the development of DFIR applications. Nearly half of respondents (47%) stated that the main reason for using outsourced DFIR services was a lack of expertise; while another reason (38%) was the unavailability of the required specialized tools, which in some cases can be very expensive.

Reference link: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/digital-forensics-incident-response-most-common-dfir-incidents/

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