Set yourself apart as a vital line of defense for your organization, ready to detect and eradicate advanced threats immediately.
The GIAC Certified Forensic Analyst (GCFA) certification validates a practitioner’s command of core forensic skills to collect and analyze data in computer systems. GCFA certification holders have the knowledge and ability to conduct formal incident investigations and handle advanced incident handling scenarios, including internal and external data breach intrusions, advanced persistent threats (APTs), anti-forensic techniques used by attackers, and complex digital forensic cases.
Areas Covered
- Advanced incident response and digital forensics
- Memory forensics, timeline analysis, and anti-forensics detection
- Threat hunting and APT intrusion incident response
Who is GCFA for?
- Incident Response Team members
- Threat hunters
- SOC analysts
- Experienced digital forensic analysts
- Information security professionals
- Federal agents and law enforcement professionals
- Red Team members, penetration testers, and exploit developers
CyberLive: Real labs. Real tools. Real skills.
CyberLive is a hands-on exam format that replaces traditional multiple-choice testing with performance-based challenges in realistic lab environments to validate real-world capability.
Virtual Machines:
Full-scale lab systems that behave like physical computers: install, attack, defend, and run services.
Real Security Tools:
Exact tools used by professionals every day including all the quirks and challenges
Authentic Code:
Real code, real exploits, real impacts
“Instructor Testimonial
...The enemy is getting better and bolder, and their success rate is impressive. "We can stop them, but to do so, we need to field more sophisticated incident responders and digital forensics investigators. We need lethal digital forensics experts who can detect and eradicate advanced threats immediately. A properly trained incident responder could be the only defense your organization has left during a compromise. Forensics 508: Advanced Digital Forensics, Incident Response, and Threat Hunting is crucial training for you to become the lethal forensicator who can step up to these advanced threats. The enemy is good. We are better. This course will help you become one of the best.”
Exam Format
- 1 proctored exam
- 82 questions
- 3 hours
- Minimum passing score of 71%
Note: GIAC periodically reviews and may update certification specifications to ensure fairness, validity, and reliability. Using a psychometric standard-setting study, GIAC has set the passing score for the GCFA exam at 71% for all candidates who receive the exam version released on or after March 18th, 2023.
To confirm the exam format and passing score that apply to your specific attempt, please refer to the Certification Information section of your GIAC account: https://exams.giac.org/pages/attempts.
Certification Delivery
GIAC certification attempts will be activated in your GIAC account after your application has been approved and according to the terms of your purchase. Details on delivery will be provided along with your registration confirmation upon payment. You will receive an email notification when your certification attempt has been activated in your account. You will have 120 days from the date of activation to complete your certification attempt.
NOTE: All GIAC Certification exams are web-based and required to be proctored. There are two proctoring options: remote proctoring through ProctorU, and onsite proctoring through PearsonVUE. Click here for more information.
Exam Certification Objectives & Outcome Statements
- Analyzing Volatile Malicious Event ArtifactsThe candidate will demonstrate an understanding of abnormal activity within the structure of Windows memory and be able to identify artifacts such as malicious processes, suspicious drivers and malware techniques such as code injection and rootkits.
- Analyzing Volatile Windows Event ArtifactsThe candidate will demonstrate an understanding of normal activity within the structure of Windows memory and be able to identify artifacts such as network connections, memory resident command line artifacts and processes, handles and threads.
- Enterprise Environment Incident ResponseThe candidate will demonstrate an understanding of the steps of the incident response process, attack progression, and adversary fundamentals and how to rapidly assess and analyze systems in an enterprise environment scaling tools to meet the demands of large investigations.
- File System Timeline Artifact AnalysisThe candidate will demonstrate an understanding of the Windows filesystem time structure and how these artifacts are modified by system and user activity.
- Identification of Malicious System and User ActivityThe candidate will demonstrate an understanding of the techniques required to identify and document indicators of compromise on a system, detect malware and attacker tools, attribute activity to events and accounts, and identify and compensate for anti-forensic actions using memory and disk resident artifacts.
- Identification of Normal System and User Activity The candidate will demonstrate an understanding of the techniques required to identify, document, and differentiate normal and abnormal system and user activity using memory and disk resident artifacts.
- Introduction to File System Timeline ForensicsThe candidate will demonstrate an understanding of the methodology required to collect and process timeline data from a Windows system.
- Introduction to Memory ForensicsThe candidate will demonstrate an understanding of how and when to collect volatile data from a system and how to document and preserve the integrity of volatile evidence.
- NTFS Artifact AnalysisThe candidate will demonstrate an understanding of core structures of the Windows filesystems, and the ability to identify, recover, and analyze evidence from any file system layer, including the data storage layer, metadata layer, and filename layer.
- Windows Artifact AnalysisThe candidate will demonstrate an understanding of Windows system artifacts and how to collect and analyze data such as system back up and restore data and evidence of application execution.
Practice Tests
- Practice exams are a simulation of the real exam, allowing you to become familiar with the test engine and style of questions
- Practice exams can serve as a gauge to determine if your preparation methods are sufficient
- The bank of practice questions is limited, so you may encounter the same question on multiple practice tests
- Practice exams never include actual exam questions
- Purchase a GCFA practice test here
Other Resources
- Training is available in a variety of modalities including live training and OnDemand
- Practical work experience can help ensure that you have mastered the skills necessary for certification
- College level courses or self-paced study through other programs or materials may meet the needs for mastery
- Understand the procedure to contest exam results
- Use this justification letter to share key details of this certification opportunity with your boss