Incident Response Tool · Hacking Project

Build a responder toolkit that automates forensic triage collection with integrity preservation and case tracking aligned to NIST 800-61.

**The problem**
During active incidents, responders waste critical minutes manually collecting volatile evidence, correlating logs, and tracking actions across disconnected tools, often breaking chain-of-custody. Under pressure, ad-hoc scripts miss artifacts and produce inconsistent output. Teams lack a unified, repeatable responder toolkit aligned to a formal IR process.

**What you'll build**
Build a cross-platform incident-response toolkit that automates triage-time evidence collection (volatile memory metadata, processes, network connections, persistence, logs), preserves artifacts with hashing and chain-of-custody, and organizes findings against the NIST 800-61 lifecycle. Provide a case-management view with timeline reconstruction and one-click IOC scanning.

**Objective** — Build a responder toolkit that automates forensic triage collection with integrity preservation and case tracking aligned to NIST 800-61.

**Expected outcome** — A cross-platform IR tool that collects and hashes triage artifacts, reconstructs a timeline, and produces a case report with chain-of-custody.

**Difficulty** — Advanced — requires OS-internals-aware artifact collection, integrity/chain-of-custody handling, and timeline correlation across platforms.

**Primary category** — DFIR; Secondary = SOC, Detection Engineering

**Security domains** — Primary = Incident Response; Secondary = Digital Forensics, Blue Team, Threat Intelligence

**Technical focus** — Live triage, volatile evidence collection, artifact hashing, chain-of-custody, timeline reconstruction, persistence enumeration, log parsing, IOC scanning, NIST 800-61 workflow, case management

**Core technologies** — Languages: Python, PowerShell; Frameworks/Libraries: Velociraptor artifacts, python-evtx, Volatility3, dfVFS; Security Tools: KAPE-style collectors, YARA, Sigma, osquery; Cloud/Infra: cross-platform agents, S3/object store for evidence; AI/Data: timeline analytics; Databases: SQLite/PostgreSQL (case data), Elastic (timeline)

**Where it's valued** — MSSPs, incident-response firms, enterprise SOCs, government/CERTs, financial services

**Careers it builds toward** — Incident Responder, DFIR Analyst, SOC Analyst, Forensic Investigator, Detection Engineer

**Framework alignment**
• MITRE ATT&CK: detection/collection across Persistence (T1547), Credential Access (T1003), Discovery (T1057/T1082), Command & Control (T1071); supports investigation of Defense Evasion (T1070 Indicator Removal)
• NIST CSF 2.0: Respond (RS.AN, RS.MI, RS.MA), Detect (DE.AE), Recover (RC.RP); aligns to NIST 800-61
• OWASP: N/A
• CIS Controls v8: 17 Incident Response Management, 8 Audit Log Management, 10 Malware Defenses