The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre published new guidance encouraging vendors and organizations to improve forensic visibility within network devices. Firewalls, VPN gateways, routers, and similar infrastructure components are increasingly targeted by sophisticated attackers, yet many still provide limited support for post-incident investigation and analysis.
The guidance introduces the concept of “forensic observability,” emphasizing the importance of collecting reliable logs, telemetry, configuration history, and forensic evidence directly from network infrastructure. Security teams often struggle to investigate incidents because devices fail to capture sufficient information about attacker activity or system changes.
For defenders, the ability to reconstruct events following a compromise is critical. Effective incident response depends on access to trustworthy data that allows analysts to determine how an attacker gained access, what actions were performed, and whether systems can be trusted after recovery. The guidance encourages organizations to evaluate these capabilities when selecting security infrastructure products.
Security teams should assess whether current network devices provide sufficient visibility for forensic investigations and incident response. Strong defensive capabilities depend not only on preventing attacks but also on collecting the evidence needed to understand, contain, and recover from incidents when they occur.