Investigations: evidence collection and handling, chain of custody, digital forensics tools and techniques

Security operations teams are often the first to discover an incident that becomes an investigation. The matter might end as an internal disciplinary action, a civil lawsuit, a regulatory inquiry or a criminal prosecution, and you rarely know which at the start. Evidence therefore must be collected and handled from the first minute in a way that preserves its integrity and admissibility. Mistakes made in the first hours, such as browsing files on a suspect laptop, can make evidence useless later.