Finding the best incident response tools for your team can be challenging. In this blog, we aim to make your choices easier.
We’ll review:
- The basics of IR tools.
- The function of IR tools for investigation.
- The top incident response tools for investigation.
Our goal is to provide a clear overview of the types of incident response tools for investigating incidents and review some popular choices so you can spend wisely and respond quickly.
Let’s get started!
Jump to a section…
What Are Incident Response Tools?
Investigation Lifecycle and Types of Investigation Tools
Best IR Tools by Type: Investigation Tools
Try a Top Investigation Platform
What are Incident Response Tools?
Incident response tools are software used by SOC analysts, engineers, IT staff, and other cybersecurity professionals to perform key responsibilities of incident response. Our framework for these responsibilities (below) is based on the NIST framework. We have slightly altered the groupings to better align with tools that fulfill the responsibilities.
The key responsibilities of incident response:
| Prepare | Detect | Investigate | Contain | Eradicate and Recover |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Build an IRP (Incident Response Plan) focusing on strategies, policies, and response. | Reactive detection and further validation after escalation. | Understand the attack to support containment and eradication. | Stop the active threat and isolate all necessary systems. | Teams work together to remove the root cause and return to a clean state. |
Although these tools can support investigators in each responsibility, we will focus on those that address the investigation stage in this blog. We’re focusing on this stage because, to be totally frank, it’s what most people are looking for when they search “incident response tools,” and we want to provide the best information for your search.
| Prepare | Detect | Investigate/Analyze | Contain | Eradicate + Recover |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Investigation Platforms | ||||
| Task-Specific Tools | ||||
| Case Management | ||||
For further details on tools for other stages and overlapping teams, check out our other blogs:
The Investigation Lifecycle and Basic Types of Investigation Tools
Alright, one more lifecycle graph thing, and, we promise, we’ll jump into the good stuff. (This is pretty important context, though).
Investigations have 3 stages, so investigation tools have to support those stages.
The 3 stages of an investigation:
| Data Processing | Automatically parsing, normalizing, enriching, and de-duplicating ingested data to produce structured, analysis-ready output without manual intervention. |
| Analysis | Automatically scoring, flagging, and prioritizing findings, while providing tools for investigators to manually review and answer questions that automation cannot anticipate. |
| Report | Sharing results in human or machine-readable formats for stakeholders, legal, compliance, or downstream systems. |
There are two types of investigation tools:
- Type 1: investigation platforms. This is software that covers all 3 stages of an investigation.
- Type 2: task-specific tools. This is software that supports a portion of the investigation.
Essentially, this means if you go the Type 2 route, you’ll have to buy a bunch of tools. If you go with Type 1, you might only need one.
Now, let’s take a look at some popular examples of these investigation tools.
NOTES
A precursor step to the investigation lifecycle is Collect + Access Data, which is acquiring raw data from relevant sources (e.g., via APIs, direct acquisition, or remote access). This includes both point-in-time and continuous collections. For more information on remote collection tools, read more here.
Although case management tools do not fall directly or solely into the investigative responsibility, they do play a role and aid during this stage. So, in addition to the investigation tools, we will also discuss case management tools. Case management supports collaboration. It’s how teams work together, keep track of incidents and responsibilities, and facilitate handoffs. Although case management supports the whole operation, it can be particularly important during the investigation stage to manage data, roles, and systems as the threat is being assessed.
Top IR Tools by Type: Investigation Tools
Type 1: Investigation Platforms
Cyber Triage
Differentiator: Rapid incident response investigations.
Cyber Triage is an automated investigation platform that provides agentless remote data collection and Windows, Linux, and memory support. Its primary focus is to enable rapid analysis of potentially compromised systems and to track threat actor activity.
It uses a range of techniques for Automated Analysis, including internal heuristics, hash analysis, Yara scanning, Sigma rule processing, and malware analysis to identify signs of malicious activity on the endpoint. To facilitate analysis (both manual and automated), Cyber Triage normalizes information in parsed artifacts to enable connections between individual events. It also uses a correlation engine to identify related events after an item is scored as “Bad” or “Suspicious.”
The tool supports between 80% and 95% of incident response investigation requirements, and it also offers a “team” version that allows multiple investigators to collaborate on the same case.
Stages covered: All
| Key Features |
|---|
| Fast: median parsing time is 11 minutes. |
| Automated scoring of artifacts. |
| Collaboration across varying expertise. |
Cyber Triage is an investigation platform that specializes in rapid incident response, enabling investigators to quickly identify compromised hosts and make their next decisions fast.
Try it for 7 days.
Magnet AXIOM Cyber
Differentiator: Deep-dive investigation with the ability to parse many artifacts.
Magnet AXIOM Cyber is a deep-dive digital investigation tool that supports remote data collection and parses a wide range of operating systems and application artifacts.
This tool aids investigations with artifact analysis, providing data visualizations for comprehensive timelines and easy artifact pivoting, and event correlation from across multiple sources. It uses YARA rule hits, MITRE ATT&CK mappings, active known connections, and known malicious files by hash sets matching to separate IOCs into a dashboard for review.
Magnet AXIOM Cyber provides many features and functions. With tuning, it can perform at moderate speeds; however, the parsing process is not considered rapid.
Stages covered: All
| Key Features |
|---|
| Parses large range of operating systems and application artifacts. |
| Chat and picture review (useful for law enforcement). |
| Provides IOC dashboard for slightly pared review. |
Autopsy
Differentiator: Open-sourced and extensible.
Autopsy is a free, open-source tool designed to be an end-to-end platform, shipped with modules and the option to add third-party modules.
Modules can provide timeline analysis, hash filtering, keyword search, data carving, malware scanning, and web artifact and multimedia extraction. It can also be customized to parse new artifacts as they are encountered.
Because of the tool’s open-source nature, it is customizable and has a strong associated community for help and development. However, it also requires more manual effort with limited built-in automation and is not made for collaboration.
Stages covered: All
| Key Features |
|---|
| Free, open-source. |
| Very customizable with an active community. |
| Integrates with Cyber Triage to create a comprehensive forensic analysis platform. |
EDR
Although EDRs can technically fall into the investigation platform category, we have chosen not to highlight them here. They are useful in many capacities, as we mention in multiple of our previous blogs, but tend to fall short with limited telemetry, striving for low false positives, and depth of investigation. EDR potential rests in detection and containment, along with integrations to strengthen where they fall short.
Category 2: Task-Specific Tools
*Reminder, this is not an exhaustive list. Not even close.
KAPE
Differentiator: Collection, data access, + artifact Parsing
KAPE is a free* tool used to identify and prioritize the most critical systems, collect key artifacts, and reduce wait and review time. KAPE consists of target collections that follow file and directory specifications, and module execution used to run programs for common operations.
It focuses on quickly collecting and processing relevant data, normalizing artifacts to support investigators, and eliminating the need for individual processing of execution-related evidence.
Stages covered: Data processing + analysis
| Key Features |
|---|
| Complex “target” files define what should be collected. |
| A standalone executable that can be deployed in many ways. |
| Supports exports to local file or cloud. |
*Licenses required when used on a third-party network and/or as part of a paid engagement.
Eric Zimmerman’s Tool Kit
In addition to KAPE, Zimmerman has created several tools that fall into this category.
Examples include JLECmd for parsing jumplists, PECmd for prefetch parsing, and SBECmd for handling shellbags. You can find more information here.
Hayabusa
Differentiator: Open-sourced automated analysis tool
Hayabusa is an open-source tool that uses over 4,000 SIGMA rules and over 170 built-in detection rules to identify event log entries of interest. Its goal is to extract only useful data and present it in a concise and readable format that can be used by professionals and any Windows system administrator.
It can be run either on a single system for live analysis, by gathering logs from a single or multiple systems for offline analysis, or incorporated into other DFIR tools.
Stages covered: Date processing + analysis
| Key Features |
|---|
| Inclusion of modules for streamlining tasks. |
| Highly customizable. |
| Fast collection time. |
Regripper
Differentiator: Windows Registry data analysis
Regripper is a tool designed by Harlan Carvey for quick Windows Registry data extraction and correlation. The tool is open-source and straightforward to use: an investigator simply provides the registry file for review, a location for the report, and the registry file type, then clicks a button to begin the process.
It uses unique plugins configured to review and extract the necessary information from the data stored in the registry key.
Stages covered: Data processing + analysis
| Key Features |
|---|
| Easy to use. |
| Straightforward reports. |
| Quickly retrieves registry evidence. |
THOR
Differentiator: APT Scanner (threat detection)
THOR is an APT scanner used to reduce the amount of possible compromised systems and lessen the manual work required on confirmed compromised systems by detecting APTs (Advanced Persistent Threats), malware, and attacker activity using more than 30,000 handcrafted YARA signatures, 4,000 Sigma rules, numerous anomaly detection rules, and thousands of IOCs.
Stages covered: Analysis
| Key Features |
|---|
| Customizable rules. |
| Flexible deployment. |
| Comprehensive scanning (scalable). |
Category 3: Incident Management and Case Collaboration
Case management tools aren’t strictly speaking investigation tools, but they support investigations. Case management tools consolidate incident-related data into a single platform, support lots of tool integrations, and use automated workflows to speed up response and maintain audit trails.
IRIS
Differentiator: Open-source and established
DFIR-IRIS is a free, open-source security tool designed to “streamline investigations, share technical details, and collaborate in real-time.” It is a self-hosting tool that is shipped in Docker containers, which can add costs/required manual effort for efficient setup and use.
It operates in 2 main parts:
- “IrisWeb – a web application that contains the core of Iris (web interface, database management, etc).”
- “IrisModules – extensions of the core that allow third parties to process data via Iris (eg enrich IOCs with MISP and VirusTotal, upload and injection of EVTX into Splunk).”
DFIR-IRIS is commonly integrated with Wazuh, which enables an automated stream of alerts into investigation cases for correlation, tracking, and coordinated response actions.
| Key Features |
|---|
| Rich API. |
| Free, open-source with an active community. |
| Extensive customizations/automated abilities. |
The Hive
Differentiator: Enrichment of observables for investigator review
The Hive is a suite of features designed to “streamline incident response workflows, enhance collaboration, and empower information security practitioners to effectively investigate and mitigate security threats.”
It prides itself on having advanced capabilities for task management, evidence handling, and threat intelligence integration. Users often integrate with Cortex to gain insights, speed up investigations, and contain threats. This use of threat intelligence is specifically beneficial during the investigation stage as it leverages tags, flags IOCs, and identifies previously seen observables. Another major integration is with the Malware Information Sharing Platform (MISP), which facilitates collaboration, especially during the investigation stage for hand-offs.
Once an open-source tool, The Hive has now switched from community to commercial, requiring licenses for the Saas version that can be on the expensive end. It still offers a free version with limited features.
| Key Features |
|---|
| Integration with MISP. |
| Customizable templates. |
| Easy observables management. |
incident.io
Differentiator: Chat-native platform
Incident.io is a chat-native incident management platform designed to reduce context-switching across teams during incident response workflows. The platform operates directly within Slack and Microsoft Teams, where teams can coordinate and manage entire incident lifecycles.
incident.io now supports AI-powered investigation and post-incident analytics to further aid investigators during their response.
| Key Features |
|---|
| Slack + Microsoft Teams integration. |
| Enhanced collaboration. |
| AI-Investigation. |
Test Drive a Top Investigation Platform
Cyber Triage uses Automated Analysis to effectively score items based on suspicion level and aids investigators in completing fast, comprehensive, and collaborative investigations.
You can try it for free for 7 days here.