Pros
- • Accelerates time-to-insight for active incident response
- • Establishes a highly repeatable, defensible triage workflow
- • Leverages Autopsy and KAPE for rapid artifact extraction
- • Integrates network capture (PCAP) and host artifact analysis
- • Enforces strict chain-of-custody and evidence handling discipline
- • Prevents evidence spoliation during early-stage investigations
Cons
- • Requires significant secure, isolated storage capacity for disk images
- • Necessitates explicit legal and HR authorization prior to intake
- • Demands strict procedural discipline to maintain evidentiary integrity
- • Advanced malware reverse-engineering requires escalation outside the triage phase
Full forensics takes months. You’re imaging gigabytes of data, parsing unallocated space, finding needles in haystacks. During an active breach, you don’t have months—you have hours. You need to know right now: did the attacker move laterally? Did they steal credentials? Is data being exfiltrated?
The Digital Forensics Triage Lab gets you answers fast, without destroying the evidence. We quickly extract the stuff that matters—memory, logs, registry, network traffic—and build a timeline of what happened. It’s fast, it’s legal, and it’s repeatable.
Speed vs. Perfection
Triage is about being smart, not exhaustive. Don’t image the entire disk—extract the 2% that matters. Use KAPE to grab the stuff that tells you everything: logs, browser history, memory, registry. Leave the original system alone so it’s still good if this ends up in court.
That’s the balance: get answers fast without destroying the evidence.
What We Actually Collect
Every OS leaves traces. We target the ones that matter:
- Windows: Event logs (everything that happened), registry hives (system settings and user activity), memory (running processes), prefetch files (what programs ran).
- Linux: Bash history, auth logs (login attempts), cron jobs (scheduled tasks), SSH keys (lateral movement).
- macOS: Unified logs, Spotlight database, shell history.
- Network: Packet captures showing what data left the system. Browser history showing how they got in.
The Toolset
All free or cheap—no licensing nightmares:
- Autopsy: Index and search everything you’ve collected. Build your timeline here.
- KAPE: Grab the artifacts you need fast. Literally pulls the exact files that matter.
- Volatility: Analyze memory to find what was actually running. Hidden processes. Injected code. C2 traffic.
- Plaso: Merge all your logs into one timeline. Hours, minutes, seconds—see exactly what happened when.
- Wireshark: Read your network traffic. See what data left the system.
- CyberChef: Decode obfuscated payloads fast.
The Workflow (Don’t Skip Steps)
Strict process. Every time. Or the evidence becomes worthless in court.
- Get Permission: Legal sign-off. Executive approval. Document it. No exceptions.
- Grab Memory First: Get the RAM. Then use KAPE to pull the files. Or image the whole drive with a write-blocker if needed.
- Hash Everything: SHA-256 hash every file you collect. Proves nothing got modified.
- Build a Timeline: Feed everything into Plaso. See exactly what happened, minute by minute.
- Find the Attack: Look at the timeline around when things went wrong. What ran? When did it run?
- Cross-Check with Network Data: Did you see suspicious files executed? Can you see the network traffic that matches?
- Report & Give Indicators: Tell the Incident Commander what happened. Give them IP addresses, domains, file hashes to hunt with.
Questions We Answer
These are the questions that actually matter to leadership:
- How did they get in? Browser history + file execution logs tell the story. Phishing? Stolen credentials? Exploit?
- What ran on the system? Logs + memory + registry. What programs executed, when, and by whom?
- Did they move to other systems? RDP logs, network traffic, credential use. Did they pivot?
- What did they steal or damage? File access logs, network exfiltration, compressed archives ready to be grabbed.
- Did they hide their tracks? Missing logs? Cleared event logs? Deleted files?
What You Get
- The Report: What happened, when, and what it means. Written so non-technical people understand.
- Chain of Custody: Legal proof that the evidence wasn’t tampered with. Who touched it, when, how long they had it.
- Evidence List: Everything you collected, verified with hashes so it’s admissible.
- IoC Indicators: IPs, domains, file hashes to feed into your SIEM and EDR for hunting.
- Next Steps: Whether this needs a deeper investigation or you can just remediate and move on.
Build It in 30 Days
It’s not just software. You need secure processes, not just tools.
- Week 1: Set up your forensics workstations (air-gapped, isolated). Buy storage for evidence. Get write-blockers.
- Week 2-3: Install Autopsy, Volatility, Plaso. Configure KAPE for your systems. Get standardized.
- Week 4: Write your Chain of Custody form. Write your Intake form. Do a practice investigation with a test infected system. Work through the whole process end-to-end.
Once you have this, you stop being reactive. Breaches stop becoming panic. You become investigators—fast, methodical, and ready to stand up in court.
