DFIR-Metric: A Benchmark Dataset for Evaluating Large Language Models in Digital Forensics and Incident Response

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Cherif, Bilel, Bisztray, Tamas, Dubniczky, Richard A., Aldahmani, Aaesha, Alshehhi, Saeed, Tihanyi, Norbert
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Cherif, Bilel
Bisztray, Tamas
Dubniczky, Richard A.
Aldahmani, Aaesha
Alshehhi, Saeed
Tihanyi, Norbert
author_facet Cherif, Bilel
Bisztray, Tamas
Dubniczky, Richard A.
Aldahmani, Aaesha
Alshehhi, Saeed
Tihanyi, Norbert
contents Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR) involves analyzing digital evidence to support legal investigations. Large Language Models (LLMs) offer new opportunities in DFIR tasks such as log analysis and memory forensics, but their susceptibility to errors and hallucinations raises concerns in high-stakes contexts. Despite growing interest, there is no comprehensive benchmark to evaluate LLMs across both theoretical and practical DFIR domains. To address this gap, we present DFIR-Metric, a benchmark with three components: (1) Knowledge Assessment: a set of 700 expert-reviewed multiple-choice questions sourced from industry-standard certifications and official documentation; (2) Realistic Forensic Challenges: 150 CTF-style tasks testing multi-step reasoning and evidence correlation; and (3) Practical Analysis: 500 disk and memory forensics cases from the NIST Computer Forensics Tool Testing Program (CFTT). We evaluated 14 LLMs using DFIR-Metric, analyzing both their accuracy and consistency across trials. We also introduce a new metric, the Task Understanding Score (TUS), designed to more effectively evaluate models in scenarios where they achieve near-zero accuracy. This benchmark offers a rigorous, reproducible foundation for advancing AI in digital forensics. All scripts, artifacts, and results are available on the project website at https://github.com/DFIR-Metric.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_19973
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle DFIR-Metric: A Benchmark Dataset for Evaluating Large Language Models in Digital Forensics and Incident Response
Cherif, Bilel
Bisztray, Tamas
Dubniczky, Richard A.
Aldahmani, Aaesha
Alshehhi, Saeed
Tihanyi, Norbert
Cryptography and Security
Artificial Intelligence
Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR) involves analyzing digital evidence to support legal investigations. Large Language Models (LLMs) offer new opportunities in DFIR tasks such as log analysis and memory forensics, but their susceptibility to errors and hallucinations raises concerns in high-stakes contexts. Despite growing interest, there is no comprehensive benchmark to evaluate LLMs across both theoretical and practical DFIR domains. To address this gap, we present DFIR-Metric, a benchmark with three components: (1) Knowledge Assessment: a set of 700 expert-reviewed multiple-choice questions sourced from industry-standard certifications and official documentation; (2) Realistic Forensic Challenges: 150 CTF-style tasks testing multi-step reasoning and evidence correlation; and (3) Practical Analysis: 500 disk and memory forensics cases from the NIST Computer Forensics Tool Testing Program (CFTT). We evaluated 14 LLMs using DFIR-Metric, analyzing both their accuracy and consistency across trials. We also introduce a new metric, the Task Understanding Score (TUS), designed to more effectively evaluate models in scenarios where they achieve near-zero accuracy. This benchmark offers a rigorous, reproducible foundation for advancing AI in digital forensics. All scripts, artifacts, and results are available on the project website at https://github.com/DFIR-Metric.
title DFIR-Metric: A Benchmark Dataset for Evaluating Large Language Models in Digital Forensics and Incident Response
topic Cryptography and Security
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.19973