Network Security
The 6 Best Digital Forensic Tools For Breach Investigation and Brand Protection
What is digital forensics, how does it work, and which digital forensics tools should you use to investigate breaches, carry out internal investigations, and protect your brand?
Last updated on Apr 22, 2024
Written by Caitlin Jones
Technical review by Tom King
Written by Caitlin Jones
Technical review by Tom King
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Digital forensics is a field of forensic science that involves identifying, extracting, processing, and analyzing electronically stored data to find out how and why something happened. In the context of a business, this “something” is usually a physical security or cybersecurity incident, such as a data breach. Digital evidence can be analyzed to help identify the cause of the attack and the threat actors involved. However, digital forensics can also be used to investigate brand theft, fraud, or employee misconduct. In each case, digital forensics provides evidence that law enforcement authorities and legal teams can use to crack down on the perpetrator. This information can also be important when making insurance claims.
The data used in digital forensics can be extracted from desktop computers, tablets, smartphones, IoT devices, datacenters and remote storage, computer networks—really, any environment where data is stored virtually. Once extracted, the data is processed and analyzed to gain insights from it. These can then be presented in an investigation report.
In this guide, we’ll explain how digital forensics works and walk you through the three main use cases where digital forensics may come in useful for your organization. We’ll also recommend the best solutions to help you carry out an investigation in the event any of these incidents occurs within your business.
How Does Digital Forensics Work?
The exact process used in digital forensics changes depending on what kind of incident you’re investigating. However, it usually involves three key steps: identifying and extracting, processing and analyzing, and reporting.
In the first step, you identify the data you need to provide evidence in your investigation and extract it from wherever its stored. This may be in a virtual database, storage center, or a physical device such as a computer or hard drive. During this process, you should create multiple copies of the data you’re collecting. These backups will help prevent data loss, damage, or tampering from affecting your investigation.
Once you’ve extracted your data, you need to process it in preparation for analysis. This involves removing any errors, redundant, or incomplete data, and converting the raw data into a format that’s readable to both machines and humans.
Once the data has been processed, you can analyze it to determine how the data relates to the incident you’re investigating—i.e., whether it proves or disproves the case. To achieve this, you’ll need to know who created the data and how, whether it was edited and if so, by whom, and a timeline for when these activities took place.
Finally, you can use the insights gained from your analysis to create a report that clearly explains the results of your discovery to all stakeholders involved in the case.
Digital Forensics For Breach Investigation
When an organization suffers a data breach, digital forensics can be used to identify the root cause of the breach, its effects on the business (i.e., what data was stolen or damaged, any financial loss), and the threat actor responsible for the attack. This information is usually passed onto law enforcement authorities that want to catch the threat actor, but it can also be used by the organization to improve its security posture and prevent future breaches of the same nature.
What Features Should You Look For In A Digital Forensics Tool For Breach Investigation?
If you’re looking for a digital forensics tool to help you investigate a breach, you should make sure the tools you’re considering offer the following features:
- Data Collection: The tool must be able to compile large sets of data.
- Forensic Imaging: The tool must be able to create a forensic image, which is immutable during the investigation.
- Analysis: The tool must offer robust analysis features, such as the ability to analyze system logs memory files, malware scanning results, and phishing link scanning. It should also enable you to trace the source of the breach (i.e., where the attacker entered the network, and at what time).
- Reporting: Once you’ve completed your analysis, you should be able to quickly and easily generate reports that explain your findings from within the platform share with key stakeholders like C-suite executives, law enforcement authorities, IT security staff, and insurance authorities.
Expert Insights’ Product Recommendation
Here are the top digital forensics tools we recommend for breach investigation:
Magnet Axiom
Magnet Forensics’ Axiom is a digital forensics and incident response tool designed to help organizations extract and analyze evidence to aid in breach investigations. The platform comprises two key features: Process and Examine. The Process feature collects forensic images and analyzes evidence from devices, primarily desktops, laptops, mobile devices, and IoT devices. The Examine feature extracts and analyzes filesystem, registry, and artifact data, and can be used to create reports to share the investigation’s findings with key stakeholders.
Axiom is easy to deploy; the user simply installs it onto their local device, then can upload an individual file/folder to analyze or analyze a whole physical disk/device that’s connected to the investigation machine. Once deployed, Axiom offers a very user-friendly interface. This, combines with the extensive resources and tutorials available, makes it easy for users to learn how to use and navigate the tool. However, it does require a significant amount of technical expertise to conduct a thorough investigation and get the most out of the tool.
Exterro FTK
Exterro’s FTK (“Forensic Toolkit”) is a digital forensics software that enables organizations to locate key pieces of data quickly, speeding up the investigation process. The platform offers a reliable, highly scalable processing engine that enables users to process large datasets quickly and accurately. This can be of critical importance in a breach investigation. FTK also offers mobile data processing which enables users to search mobile devices for the source of a breach. It supports a large range of file formats and storage device types, which can be used to investigate complex incidents where multiple devices have been breached.
In terms of deployment, FTK requires a simple local install, and requires little technical expertise to connect devices and/or images to the software. The platform offers an intuitive interface that’s relatively easy to navigate for those who are familiar with forensic investigation; however, it would be complex for a beginner to use. Exterro also offers lots of training resources to help new users learn their way around the platform, as well as certifications for those who truly want to master the FTK solution.
To explore more digital forensics tools that specialize in breach investigation and incident response, check out our complete guide: The Top 6 DFIR Solutions.
Digital Forensics For Internal Investigations
Digital forensics can also be used to investigate cases of employee misconduct. This requires a similar approach to breach investigation; however, rather than investigating an entire organization, it involves searching through employees’ devices to uncover violations such as theft, fraud, harassment, embezzlement, and extortion. This information can be used to pursue legal action or other disciplinary action against the employee, or to terminate their employment.
What Features Should You Look For In A Digital Forensics Tool For Internal Investigations?
If you’re looking for a digital forensics tool to conduct an internal investigation, for example into employee misconduct, you should make sure the tools you’re considering offer the following features:
- Evidence Collection: The tool must be able to compile evidence from various end-user devices, primarily desktops, and mobile devices.
- Analysis: The tool must be able to conduct forensic analysis on devices to retrieve artifacts that may be important, such as emails, text messages, and other forms of communication.
- Reporting: Once the investigation is complete, you should be able to create a report to share with the required teams (e.g., legal, HR) in order to take further action against the employee.
Expert Insights’ Product Recommendation
Here are the top digital forensics tools we recommend for internal investigations:
OpenText EnCase Forensic
EnCase Forensic by OpenText is one of the most popular digital forensics tools currently on the market. It offers in-depth investigation features that enable users to examine data at all layers, including systems, registries, and memory. OpenText has also recently added machine learning and AI-powered investigation features to the EnCase Forensic platform, which can help users to locate specific artifacts more quickly (e.g., drugs, weapons, and explicit sexual content). The platform offers very fast processing speeds, which is particularly useful in cases where a device holds lots of data. In terms of reporting, EnCase can generate evidence reports that are admissible in court, which could be helpful in the event that an employee’s misconduct needed to be escalated further than an internal investigation.
OpenText offers a wealth of training resources for EnCase Forensic, as well as certifications. The platform is straightforward to deploy but, as with other digital forensics solutions, it does require a certain level of technical expertise to be able to conduct in-depth investigations.
Autopsy
Autopsy is a digital forensics tool that provides users with a convenient, user-friendly means of conducting investigations, whist ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements and litigation standards. Autopsy offers all the core features you’d expect in a digital forensics tool, such as disk imaging, customizable reporting, and keywork searching—the latter of which our product testing team found particularly useful, as it was able to return results in just a few seconds. However, Autopsy’s standout feature is the ability to add custom file analysis, reporting, or graphical analytics display modules to the platform. This enables investigation teams to tailor the platform to support the specific needs of their investigation. Another key feature is the platform’s in-built support for collaboration, which enables users to work together more easily and compile data at the same time.
Autopsy is very easy to deploy, and the entire deployment process only takes a few minutes. Once deployed, the platform has a slight learning curve, but is relatively straightforward to use. There are also lots of useful training resources available to help onboard newer investigators.
Notable Mention: Cellebrite
Cellebrite is a leading tool in mobile forensics and is particularly popular amongst law enforcement. It offers powerful search capabilities, which enable it to locate data on any kind of mobile device, and a physical tablet product that can be connected to any mobile device and used to perform an investigation almost immediately.
Digital Forensics For Brand Protection
Finally, digital forensics can be used to investigate or prevent threats to a brand’s reputation, IP, and other trademarks. The finding of a brand protection investigation can be used to take legal action against the person/s responsible for the intellectual property theft.
What Features Should You Look For In A Digital Forensics Tool For Brand Protection?
If you’re looking for a digital forensics tool to investigate or prevent a threat to your brand’s reputation, you should make sure the tools you’re considering offer the following features:
- Monitoring: The tool should monitor the internet, including social media websites and the dark web, for instances where your intellectual property has been stolen. Some solutions also monitor for potential
- Alerting: The tool must alert you to any instances where your brand is under threat, or your property is being used without your permission.
- Evidence Collection and Presentation: You should be able to collect evidence brand theft in a single, central management console, and create and export reports to share with relevant legal authorities.
Expert Insights’ Product Recommendation
Here are the top digital forensics tools we recommend for brand protection:
BrandShield Brand-Oriented Digital Risk Protection
BrandShield’s Brand-Oriented Digital Risk Protection suite enables organizations to detect instances of data leakage and fraud, then mitigate those events. The platform offers protection against social media impersonation, trademark infringement, phishing attacks, fraud, networks, and cybersquatting. It uses AI and machine learning to identify and take down infringements across websites, domain names, marketplaces, and social media.
BrandShield’s suite offers a user friendly interface, which users can navigate to access takedowns, analytics data, and reports. The product deploys in the cloud, making it easy to deploy and configure with little expertise. It also offers a setup walkthrough.
Red Points
Red Points is an AI-powered brand protection platform that helps organizations to identify and take down fraudulent or fake websites, social media accounts, and instances of piracy. Within the platform, RedPoints offers several tools. Its brand protection tool identifies and removes counterfeit digital assets, such as product listings, trademarks, websites, and social media profiles; the domain management tool identifies other domains that are using your brand’s name, then helps you recover those domains; the anti-piracy tool identifies instances of unauthorized content reproduction, including unauthorized streaming, copying, and distribution; and the impersonation removal tool removes fake accounts, applications, sites, and domains.
The Red Points platform deploys in the cloud, with guidance and support from their onboarding team. The platform is reliable and intuitive, and at the time of writing is trusted by over 1,300 brand globally.
Summary
Computers are commonplace in almost every aspect of modern life—particularly in the workplace—and they generate and store huge amounts of data. In addition to documents and images stored on the device, and the metadata for those files, computers usually log all the actions their user performs, as well as any autonomous activities that the device itself performs, such as connections to different networks and devices.
Because of this, digital evidence has become a crucial part of solving criminal and legal investigations. And the easiest way to compile that evidence and make sense of it, is using a digital forensics tool like the ones recommended in this guide.
Tom King
