A Day in the Life of a DFIR Engineer – Real World Look
Most people, when they hear ‘forensics’, picture detectives and crime scenes. But in my world—Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR)—the scene is totally digital. Stuff moves fast, logs pile up, and you’ve gotta figure out what’s going on ASAP.
“It’s not just about catching bad guys—it’s about understanding the story behind every byte.”
Here’s what a day in my life kinda looks like. It’s not always the same, but this gives you a feel for it.
Let’s Know a Day in the Life of a DFIR Engineer
8:30 AM – Checking What’s Up
First thing is always checking alerts and what happened overnight. Sometimes nothing much, other times I wake up to alerts like ‘Possible ransomware detected on user-laptop-03 at 3AM’. Not the best wake-up call.
If there’s already an incident running, I hop into our Slack war room to get the lowdown.
9:15 AM – Figuring Out If It’s Real
We don’t treat every alert like it’s the end of the world. Gotta check if it’s legit. I open up our logs (usually Splunk or Elastic) and start digging. Looking for sketchy login attempts, weird PowerShell commands, stuff like that.
If it looks real, we figure out what kind of problem it is—malware, someone doing something shady, data leaving the building, etc.
10:45 AM – Grab the Evidence
Time to collect data. If the device’s still online, I’ll try to image the drive or grab memory remotely using stuff like FTK Imager or Velociraptor. Chain of custody? Yeah, always tracking what we touch. Just in case this goes legal later.
12:30 PM – Grab Food, Maybe
Quick lunch, if I’m lucky. Some days we eat while watching alerts or reading CISA news. I follow a few RSS feeds to stay sharp.
1:15 PM – Dive Deep
This is when I get to dig into actual forensic data. Prefetch files, registry, event logs, browser history—all that good stuff. Using tools like Autopsy, Volatility, and Timesketch. This is where you build the story of what really happened.
4:00 PM – Write It All Down
After the digging, I gotta write a report. What happened, what it hit, how it started, and what to do now. We send it over to IT/security folks, and usually jump on a call to plan cleanup— password resets, blocking access, etc.
5:30 PM – Notes and Wind Down
Almost done for the day. I jot down some final notes, update the tracker, maybe archive some indicators we found. If this case might go to legal, I prep stuff for that too. Sometimes, it’s not over yet.
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Other Days – Real World Raids
Now and then we go on-site. Especially with gov clients or insider threat stuff. Those days start early, with lawyers, USBs, and making sure you don’t spook anyone while collecting evidence live. Kinda like in the movies, but sweatier.
So Yeah, It’s Not Boring
DFIR isn’t for everyone. You need to be cool under pressure, good at tech, and not mind weird hours. But for me? It’s awesome. Every day’s a puzzle. And when you crack it, that’s a great feeling.
If you like solving mysteries and don’t mind staring at logs for hours, maybe DFIR is your jam. I have shared complete information about a day in the life of a DFIR engineer
More stuff like this is coming soon. I might write about some tools or weird cases I’ve seen.
Follow along if you’re curious about the messy, kinda crazy world of DFIR.