Evidence Collection, Analysis & Attribution
After containment, the questions begin. How did they get in? What did they take? Who was responsible? How long were they present? Our digital forensics team answers these questions with evidence that holds up to regulatory scrutiny, legal proceedings, and board-level examination — using the Nexus platform’s unique forensic visibility across identity, cloud, SaaS, endpoint, and AI systems.
Forensic Investigation Surfaces
Digital forensics requires a disciplined, methodical approach that preserves evidence integrity, maintains chain of custody, and produces findings that survive adversarial scrutiny. Our process is designed for that standard from the first action we take.
Before any analysis begins, we work with your legal counsel to establish preservation obligations, implement legal holds on relevant data sources, and document the chain of custody for all evidence collected. Evidence collected without proper preservation procedures can be challenged or excluded in legal and regulatory proceedings. We prevent that from becoming your problem.
We acquire forensically sound copies of all relevant evidence sources — endpoint disk images, memory captures, cloud audit logs, identity logs, SaaS activity data, network captures, and AI agent behavioral data — using validated forensic acquisition tools that produce cryptographic hashes confirming evidence integrity. Analysis is performed on copies, never originals.
Our forensic team leverages the Nexus Security Graph to provide contextual analysis that pure forensic tools cannot deliver. Atlas’s historical relationship graph allows us to reconstruct trust relationships, permission states, and access paths at specific points in time — answering not just what happened but why it was possible and how long the exposure existed before exploitation.
We build a complete, chronologically precise attack timeline from initial access through exfiltration or impact — stitching together evidence from identity logs, cloud audit trails, endpoint artifacts, SaaS activity, network captures, and AI agent behavioral data. Every event in the timeline is tied to specific evidence with source, timestamp, and confidence rating documented.
Where attribution is sought, our forensic team works with the TDU to correlate observed TTPs, tooling, infrastructure, and behavioral patterns with known adversary groups. We provide attribution assessments with explicit confidence levels and supporting evidence — distinguishing between technical attribution, operational attribution, and strategic attribution at the appropriate confidence level for each.
All forensic findings are documented in a formal expert report suitable for regulatory submission, litigation support, and board-level presentation. Our forensic examiners are available to provide expert witness testimony in legal and regulatory proceedings, and our reports are written to meet the standards required for admissibility in relevant jurisdictions.
Modern enterprise breaches span multiple systems and surfaces. Our forensic team is capable across every relevant evidence source.
Reconstruction of identity-based attacker activity including authentication events, token usage, OAuth grant history, privilege changes, and trust relationship exploitation.
Analysis of cloud-based attacker activity across AWS, Azure, and GCP including API call reconstruction, IAM activity analysis, resource modification history, and cross-account movement evidence.
Traditional and advanced endpoint forensics including disk image analysis, volatile memory acquisition and analysis, malware reverse engineering, and detection of anti-forensic techniques.
Investigation of SaaS-based attacker activity including email compromise evidence, file access reconstruction, sharing permission history, and cross-SaaS lateral movement documentation.
Analysis of captured network traffic for evidence of command-and-control communication, data exfiltration, lateral movement, and attacker infrastructure identification.
Investigation of AI agent compromise including prompt injection evidence collection, unauthorized tool invocation reconstruction, MCP server abuse documentation, and agent behavioral drift analysis.
Every forensic investigation produces a complete set of deliverables designed for multiple audiences — technical teams, legal counsel, regulators, and boards.
Complete technical documentation of the investigation methodology, evidence collected, findings, and conclusions — written to expert witness standards.
Documentation specifically formatted for regulatory notification, litigation support, and legal proceedings — including evidence packages suitable for law enforcement referral.
Non-technical executive summary of investigation findings, business impact assessment, and remediation priorities — suitable for board presentation and external stakeholder communication.
Cryptographically verified, chain-of-custody-documented archive of all collected evidence — preserved for the duration required by applicable retention obligations.
Digital Forensics follows Emergency Response to answer what happened and document it defensibly. Breach Recovery uses those findings to restore your environment to a formally verified trusted state.
Our digital forensics team delivers investigation findings that answer every question from regulators, legal counsel, insurers, and boards — with evidence that stands up to scrutiny.
