deepthi sWhat really happens after a cyberattack hits your business?
Who steps in first: the digital forensics team or the incident response team?
According to a recent survey, many companies don’t have a clear answer.
Only 55% of companies have a fully documented incident response plan, and only 30% of companies update that plan on a regular basis. When compared to today’s cyber threat situation, this is a significant difference.
Cybercrime is smashing records around the world, and India is now the world’s second most targeted nation for cyberattacks. If your company is attacked tomorrow, your ability to recover swiftly and avoid legal trouble or significant losses is determined by how well you understand and apply Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR).
In this blog, we will dive into the differences between digital forensics and incident response and explain the importance of both for your business.
Why Businesses Choose Mitigata for DFIR Services?
Our approach to DFIR (Digital Forensics and Incident Response) isn’t limited to fixing what’s broken. We help you understand the root cause, preserve critical evidence, and ensure your organisation can stand strong before insurers, regulators, and stakeholders.
Here’s what makes us different:
Insurance-Ready Forensics
Our forensic documentation meets the exact standards required by insurers and regulators, helping clients avoid delays or disputes during claims.
Integrated Response Team
We combine cyber forensic experts, legal advisors, and crisis managers who work in sync to manage both the technical and business impact of an incident.
Accuracy at Every Step
From preserving volatile data and analysing attack patterns to assessing the scope of exposure, our investigations are methodical and defensible.
24/7 Rapid Response
Our team operates around the clock to contain active threats, isolate affected systems, and minimise downtime.
Support Beyond Containment
We assist with ransomware management, communication with stakeholders, and post-incident system hardening to strengthen long-term resilience.
One Breach Can Cripple You. One Team Can Save You
What Is Digital Forensics?
Digital forensics is the investigative side of cybersecurity. It focuses on collecting, analysing, and preserving digital evidence after an attack or suspicious activity. It transforms raw data into facts that can hold up in court, before regulators, or during insurance reviews.
A good forensic investigation digs through every layer of a breach – from file systems and memory captures to user logs and network activity. For example, when a company’s database is accessed without authorisation, forensic analysts track login timestamps, IP logs, and file changes to pinpoint how intruders entered, what they took, and when it occurred.
What really happens inside a Security Operations Center? The answer might surprise you!
What Is Incident Response?
Incident response is like an action book for the times when a cyber incident occurs. While digital forensics examines what occurred, incident response is focused on minimising the threat, eliminating it, and restoring operations as soon as possible.
For example, when a ransomware incident begins to encrypt internal files, an incident response team will immediately take their devices off the network, air-gapping to ensure that the malware does not propagate further through the organisation. It will also block malicious connections and restore system functionality from clean backups.
Communications with leadership, legal, and IT teams are established to keep each party in the loop throughout the entire response operations.
The DFIR Partner You Call When Minutes Matter
Digital Forensics vs Incident Response: Key Differences
Digital forensics and incident response often work side by side, but their purposes differ. Here’s a clear difference between the two:
| Aspect | Digital Forensics | Incident Response |
| Primary Goal | Investigate and document how the attack occurred | Contain, eradicate, and recover from the attack |
| Focus Area | Evidence collection, analysis, and attribution | Real-time detection, containment, and mitigation |
| Timeline | Weeks to months | Hours to days |
| Output | Forensic reports, timelines, threat actor profiling | Incident reports, recovery plans, and mitigation steps |
| Tools Used | Disk imaging tools, log analysers, and forensic suites | EDR, SIEM, firewalls, and automation platforms |
| Team Involvement | Forensic analysts, legal teams, and compliance officers | Security operations center (SOC), IT teams, and management |
| Use Case Example | Identifying how ransomware entered through a phishing email | Isolating infected systems to prevent ransomware spread |
| Outcome | Provides root cause and long-term insights | Restores business operations quickly and safely |
What’s your cyber risk worth? See how cyber risk is quantified and managed.
When You Need Both: The Role of Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR):
Modern cyber threats demand both capabilities working together, which is why DFIR (Digital Forensics and Incident Response) has become the industry standard.
A healthcare provider detects suspicious encrypted traffic leaving their network at 2 AM. The incident response team immediately isolates affected systems and blocks suspicious IP addresses. Simultaneously, forensics specialists preserve evidence from compromised systems.
As the IR team stops the attack, forensic analysts discover the attackers had been inside the network for six weeks. This finding changes everything. The team now needs to look for additional backdoors, check for data exfiltration over that entire period, and assess whether patient records were compromised.
Without forensics, the company would have stopped the immediate attack but missed the bigger picture. Without an incident response, they’d be analysing evidence while attackers continued causing damage.
Stop Paying the Price of Poor Incident Response
Conclusion
It’s more than just digital forensics vs incident response – with cyberattacks happening every 39 seconds, the threat isn’t going away anytime soon. But the right DFIR strategy can turn an incident into an opportunity to strengthen resilience and maintain trust.
Mitigata has successfully secured 800+ businesses with investigative precision with rapid response. Our team delivers clear, defensible results that protect both your operations and your reputation.
Get your expert DFIR support today! Book call now.
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