Digital Forensics And Incident Response (dfir)

Casual observers say "hack" to describe unauthorized access, but insiders say "compromise" to refer to systems breached by attackers.

Outsiders call it "password theft" while insiders use "credential dumping" to refer to extracting stored credentials from systems.

Outsiders think of "deleting files" as removal, but professionals use "data sanitization" to describe secure and unrecoverable deletion techniques.

Lay terms use "computer evidence," but professionals prefer "digital evidence" to encompass all digital artifacts relevant to an investigation.

Outsiders say "cleaning a computer," but DFIR experts specifically use "eradication" to mean removing threats completely from a network.

Casual speakers use "hacking tool," but experts say "exploit toolkit" to describe software used to leverage vulnerabilities.

Laypeople may compare cyber investigations to "police investigation," but insiders call coordinated cyber incident management "incident response."

Outsiders often use "computer virus" to describe malicious software broadly, while DFIR professionals use "malware" to include all types of malicious software beyond viruses.

Non-experts say "bug" for software flaws, while DFIR members use "vulnerability" to signify weaknesses that can be exploited.

Casual users say "virus scan" to detect malware, whereas DFIR experts refer to sophisticated monitoring tools as "EDR" for continuous endpoint threat detection.