New Open-Source Toolkit Targets Forensic Investigation of Compromised Firewalls and VPNs

An open-source digital-forensics toolkit has been introduced to help incident responders investigate compromised firewalls, VPN concentrators and network gateways without unnecessarily destroying volatile evidence.

Developed by Raymond DePalma, the Edge DFIR Toolkit covers 10 network security platforms, including FortiOS, Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS, Ivanti Connect Secure, Cisco ASA and Citrix NetScaler.

The project currently catalogs 92 forensic artifacts and 142 detection rules using Sigma and YARA. It also provides vulnerability-specific investigation timelines and collection procedures designed to preserve evidence before systems are rebooted or patched.

Unlike conventional endpoint-forensics tools, the toolkit addresses the restrictions imposed by network appliances that may not provide investigators with direct operating-system access.

Its collection procedures prioritize volatile information, including memory-related artifacts, active sessions and system logs. The toolkit also supports evidence hashing, investigative timelines and reports that identify gaps in the available evidence.

However, the developer warns that collection profiles have not yet been validated on real hardware. Testing has been limited to synthetic data, and investigators are advised to verify procedures in a laboratory before using them during live incidents.

For digital-forensics teams, the project highlights the importance of evidence preservation when investigating network devices where conventional disk imaging may be unavailable.