Event-triggered forensics capture

Abstract

Event-triggered forensics capture technologies balance security incident data availability against data processing and storage costs. A forensic correlation engine receives basic status data of a monitored computing system. A forensic computing system detects a trigger event in the basic status data, and starts capturing extended status data per a corresponding capture specification. Captured data is submitted to a forensic analysis tool. Different trigger events may cause different data captures. A query specifying which data to capture from a live stream or from virtual machines may operate as a capture trigger start event. Extended status data capture activity may be stopped by a change in the basic status data being received, by a timeout, or by forensic analysis that finds no vulnerability or threat based on captured data. Data transfers and storage may be restricted to comply with privacy regulations or policies.