Question

You are the first forensic analyst to arrive on the scene of a data breach. You have been asked to begin evidence collection on the server while waiting for the rest of your team to arrive. Which of the following evidence should you capture first?

A. Backup tapes
B. Image of the server's SSD
C. L3 cache
D. ARP cache

Answer 1

Upon arrival at a data breach scene, a forensic analyst should prioritize capturing the ARP cache first, as it contains volatile IP to MAC address mappings that can be crucial for the investigation and can be lost if the server is rebooted or the cache overflows.

Step-by-step explanation:

When arriving first on the scene of a data breach, the immediate goal is to preserve evidence that is most volatile or at risk of being lost or overwritten. The ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) cache contains the IP address to MAC address mappings and is typically stored in the device's RAM. It is a critical piece of evidence as it can help establish which devices were communicating with the server at the time of the breach. This data can be lost if the server is rebooted or as the cache table becomes full and older entries are purged.

An image of the server's SSD would provide a comprehensive snapshot of the server at a specific point in time, including files and logs; however, SSDs may employ wear-leveling and other techniques that can overwrite data. Backup tapes are important but are not usually affected immediately following a breach since they store data that is not currently volatile. The L3 cache, while also volatile, is more difficult to access and contains less data compared to the ARP cache, which has higher immediate relevance.

Therefore, a forensic analyst should first capture the ARP cache before accessing other types of evidence like images of the SSDs or backup tapes. This preserves the most immediately at-risk information that is crucial for the investigation of the data breach.