White Paper
Building a Portable Network Forensics Kit
This white paper provides practical guidance for assembling a mobile toolkit that can capture and analyze network traffic during cyber incidents and troubleshooting engagements. The recommended kit includes a dedicated laptop with sufficient memory, SSD capacity, USB 3.0 connectivity, battery life, and fast write performance; packet-analysis software such as Wireshark; and a portable network TAP for complete, non-intrusive access to live traffic. Unlike SPAN ports, a TAP captures packets directly from the wire without relying on switch configuration or exposing the monitoring activity to the network. The paper also introduces basic forensic techniques, including reviewing event timing, DNS activity, unusual destinations, repeated requests, and automated behavior. Such a kit gives small org
