Digital Forensics Toolkit Guide

CORE DFIR TOOLKIT (Essential Tools Every Professional Should Know)

These are the 15 tools a working DFIR analyst or investigator actually uses most often — across imaging, memory, log, and network forensics.

Category	Tool	Purpose
Disk Imaging & Acquisition	FTK Imager	Create forensic disk images, preview evidence safely, verify hashes.
	Guymager	Fast, reliable disk imaging on Linux; supports E01 and raw formats.
Disk & File Analysis	Autopsy / Sleuth Kit	Open-source suite for file recovery, timeline, and keyword searches.
	X-Ways Forensics	Lightweight commercial suite for deep file system and hex analysis.
Memory Forensics	Volatility 3	Analyze RAM dumps for processes, malware, and system artifacts.
Network Forensics	Wireshark	Capture and analyze network traffic; identify protocols and anomalies.
	NetworkMiner	Extracts files, images, and credentials from packet captures.
Timeline & Artifact Analysis	Log2Timeline / Plaso	Build system activity timelines from diverse artifacts.
	Timesketch	Visualize and interact with forensic timelines.
Windows Artifact Parsing	KAPE	Automates rapid collection and parsing of Windows artifacts.
	Registry Explorer / RECmd	Examine and extract Windows Registry data.
Incident Response / Endpoint Collection	Velociraptor	Live response and forensic collection at scale.
	Cyber Triage	Guided triage and scoring tool for compromised hosts.
Reporting & Case Management	Hunchly	Capture and document online evidence for reports and OSINT.
Hashing & Verification	HashCalc / md5deep / hashcat	Verify integrity of evidence and perform hash-based searches.

For professionals handling specific domains (mobile, cloud, IoT, SCADA, etc.), these expand your investigative capabilities:

Cellebrite UFED / Physical Analyzer – Industry standard for deep mobile data extraction and decoding.
Magnet AXIOM Mobile – Integrates mobile + disk + cloud data.
Oxygen Forensic Detective – Mobile, cloud, and IoT data correlation.

Magnet AXIOM Cloud – Acquire data from cloud sources (Google, O365, Slack, AWS).
ElcomSoft Cloud Explorer – Extract authentication tokens, iCloud data, and synced content.
CloudBerry Explorer / AWS CLI – Retrieve and validate evidence from cloud storage.

Ghidra / IDA Pro – Reverse engineering and disassembly of binaries.
Cuckoo Sandbox – Automated behavioral analysis of malware.
PEStudio / Detect It Easy – Static examination of executables for IOCs and anomalies.

Maltego – Map relationships between people, domains, and infrastructure.
SpiderFoot / TheHarvester – Automate OSINT data gathering from public sources.
IntelMQ / MISP – Threat intelligence sharing and IOC correlation.

Primary Workstation: Autopsy, Volatility, Wireshark, FTK Imager, KAPE, Hunchly
Linux Live USB (e.g., Paladin or SANS SIFT): Guymager, dd, dc3dd, Sleuth Kit
Cloud VM / Remote IR Environment: Velociraptor, Zeek, Timesketch, Cyber Triage
Malware Sandbox: Cuckoo, Ghidra, PEStudio