Investigation Glossary

Browse 13 investigation terms defined in plain English, from the cultural dictionary of computing.

13 Investigation Terms

Code Detective
Someone who is especially good at tracing symptoms, clues, and strange behaviors back to their actual source in the code. In engineering slang, the code...
Computer Forensics
Computer Forensics is the preservation and examination of computer systems and storage to recover evidence relevant to an investigation. Security teams use it...
Digital Forensics
Digital Forensics is the collection and analysis of digital evidence from devices, logs, and media using defensible procedures. Security teams use it to...
Forensic Analysis
The structured examination of digital evidence to determine what happened, how it happened, and what systems or data were affected. Forensic analysis combines...
Forensic Investigation
An inquiry that uses preserved digital evidence to determine the scope, timeline, cause, and impact of suspicious or malicious activity. A forensic...
Incident Forensics
Incident Forensics is forensic analysis performed during or after an incident to reconstruct attacker behavior and scope. Security teams use it to enforce...
Incident Investigation
The evidence-driven effort to determine what happened during a security incident, how the attacker or failure path worked, and what data or systems were...
Log Analysis
The examination of system, application, network, or cloud logs to identify anomalies, reconstruct events, or confirm suspicious behavior. Log analysis is...
Memory Forensics
Memory Forensics is forensic analysis of volatile memory to recover processes, keys, connections, or malware artifacts. Security teams use it to enforce trust,...
Network Forensics
Network Forensics is the reconstruction and analysis of network communications for investigation, scoping, and evidence collection. Security teams use it to...
OSINT
Open Source Intelligence — the collection and analysis of information from publicly available sources (social media, public records, news, DNS records) for...
Pull the Thread
To follow one clue or inconsistency deeply enough that it starts unraveling the larger situation. In engineering slang, pulling the thread is how minor...
Software Archaeology
The work of digging through old code, comments, and behavior to infer how a system really functions. In engineering slang, software archaeology becomes...

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