Cyber attacks are a daily occurrence for most companies, and it is usually only a matter of time before data security is breached. That's when forensic tools come into their own, helping investigative teams investigate incidents, secure evidence, and initiate countermeasures.
There is no such thing as XNUMX% protection against cyber attacks – this is proven, among other things, by the numerous reports of ransomware attacks and data breaches in the news and daily newspapers. It is therefore important for companies to prepare for emergencies and set up coordinated processes for analyzing security incidents and restoring normal business operations. Manual investigations are far too time-consuming and complex, so investigative teams depend on digital forensic tools to examine a large number of spatially distributed systems and quickly gather all the information they need. Exterro, provider of legal GRC software that unifies e-discovery, digital forensics, data protection and cybersecurity compliance, explains how the solutions support the work of those responsible:
Large range of functions
Cyber criminals today use very sophisticated attack methods and cleverly cover their tracks to avoid detection. Forensic tools therefore need extensive capabilities to track down the diverse activities of malware and hackers. Regardless of the systems used and the software running on them, they must be able to secure, store and analyze user and system data.
User data includes, for example, information from hard drives, RAM and peripheral devices, while system data includes information about access to programs, data and network connections. The spectrum is extremely broad, well beyond the capabilities of endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions, which have very limited capabilities for forensic investigations. Good forensic tools detect manipulations of data and settings on different systems and are also able to retrieve deleted data.
Automation of manual processes
In the case of cyber attacks, rapid reactions and immediate preservation of evidence are important in order to avert greater damage. However, the manual examination of thousands of computers at locations around the world and of systems in the public cloud is very time-consuming and resource-consuming, which is why forensic tools should have extensive automation functions. They quickly provide facts about what is happening and what needs to be done, and reliably document all findings and evidence.
Customizability and flexibility
Good forensic tools fit seamlessly into a wide variety of system and application landscapes and allow very individual adjustments in order to be able to examine specific security incidents in detail. One of the keys to this is scripting skills, which allow many processes to be designed more efficiently and predefined scenarios to be processed automatically. For example, a script could automatically disconnect a suspicious endpoint from the network to prevent data leakage and immediately start collecting evidence and finding the origin of the attack. This saves valuable time for security and investigation teams.
Legal protection
Forensic tools not only help to detect and contain attacks and to determine their origin and the systems affected. They also protect companies in legal disputes by helping to prove that data protection laws, compliance requirements and other regulatory requirements were met at the time of the attack. In addition, they secure all test results as evidence, so that they stand up in court and are not contestable. To this end, forensic tools carry out regular checks throughout the investigation process and, if necessary, even create a complete image backup of endpoints, so that companies can consistently prove that results have not been changed either intentionally or accidentally.
Scalability of forensic tools
For use in large companies with thousands or tens of thousands of end devices, forensic tools must scale seamlessly. This is the only way they are able to examine a large number of potentially affected systems with a single click after a security incident.
“When responding to security breaches, manual processes and poorly integrated forensics solutions inevitably lead to chaos. Companies need tools that fit well into their system landscapes and in which the technologies complement each other perfectly, so that they can carry out investigations largely automatically and react quickly and specifically to threats," emphasizes Jens Reumessel, Director of Sales DACH at Exterro. “Even organizations that trust their security solutions should continually rethink and improve their security incident investigation tools and processes. The threat landscape is changing every day, and cybercriminals are using every little gap in their defenses to strike.”
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About exterro
Exterro provides legal governance, risk and compliance software that the world's largest corporations, law firms and government agencies use to proactively manage and protect their complex data protection, cybersecurity compliance, legal operations and digital forensics processes. The software is the only one in the industry that combines all legal GRC requirements within a single platform and offers extensive automation capabilities.