// THREAT DETECTION AND DATA PRIVACY TERM
Artifact
In cybersecurity incident response, an artifact is any piece of digital evidence or data left behind on a system or network during a security incident. These clues help investigators understand what happened, who was involved, and how the breach occurred.
TECHNICAL DEFINITION
A cybersecurity artifact refers to any forensic data point or digital remnant discovered within an IT environment (e.g., system logs, file metadata, memory dumps, network packets) that serves as crucial evidence in reconstructing attack timelines, identifying adversary tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), and determining incident scope.
BACKGROUND
A cyberattack occurs when there is an unauthorized action against computer infrastructure that compromises the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of its content.
READ MORE ON WIKIPEDIASYNONYMS & ALIASES
- Digital evidence
- Forensic artifact
- Trace
- Remnant
- Clue
- Indicator
USAGE NOTE
Artifacts are critical for forensic analysis, threat hunting, and understanding the root cause and impact of a security compromise.
DEVELOPERS
Organizations developing technology related to Artifact.
Develops digital forensics software that allows organizations to recover, analyze, and manage digital evidence and artifacts from computers, mobile devices, and cloud sources for investigations.
Specializes in digital intelligence solutions, providing tools for law enforcement, government, and enterprises to lawfully access, collect, and analyze digital data and artifacts from mobile devices and other digital sources.
Offers incident response, threat intelligence, and proactive cybersecurity services, heavily relying on the collection and analysis of forensic artifacts to understand and respond to cyberattacks.
Provides endpoint protection, threat intelligence, and incident response services, utilizing its Falcon platform to collect and analyze endpoint artifacts (e.g., processes, files, network connections) to detect and prevent breaches.
Develops a data platform for security information and event management (SIEM), security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR), ingesting and correlating various digital artifacts (logs, events, metrics) to provide security insights and operational intelligence.
Offers a comprehensive suite of cybersecurity products, including Extended Detection and Response (XDR) and next-generation firewalls, which involve collecting and analyzing network, endpoint, and cloud artifacts to identify and prevent threats.
Focuses on developer security, helping organizations find and fix vulnerabilities in their code, open-source dependencies, containers, and infrastructure as code, thereby securing software artifacts throughout the development lifecycle.
Delivers real-time threat intelligence by collecting and analyzing vast amounts of data from the open, deep, and dark web, identifying and contextualizing threat artifacts (IOCs, malware, attacker infrastructure) to help organizations anticipate and mitigate threats.