Build an Incident Timeline with AI

Situatie

During a security investigation, you may have authentication logs, process events, network connections, and file activity scattered across different sources. The difficult part is often figuring out what happened first and how the events are connected. AI can help turn those raw events into a structured incident timeline.

Solutie

Step 1 – Collect the Events

Start with a small set of relevant events from your investigation.

For example:

09:12 - Failed SSH login from 203.0.113.50
09:14 - Successful SSH login from 203.0.113.50
09:17 - New process started by the logged-in user
09:19 - File downloaded from an external server
09:23 - Outbound network connection created
09:31 - User account disabled

These can come from authentication logs, EDR, firewall logs, or other security tools.

Step 2 – Ask AI to Build the Timeline

Give the events to AI and provide clear instructions:

I'm investigating a security incident in an authorized environment.

Create a chronological incident timeline from these events.

For each event:
- Keep the original timestamp
- Explain what happened
- Identify related events
- Clearly separate facts from assumptions

Events:

09:12 - Failed SSH login from 203.0.113.50
09:14 - Successful SSH login from 203.0.113.50
09:17 - New process started by the logged-in user
09:19 - File downloaded from an external server
09:23 - Outbound network connection created
09:31 - User account disabled

AI can turn this into a much easier-to-read investigation timeline.

Step 3 – Look for Gaps

Now ask:

What information is missing from this timeline?

Suggest additional logs or evidence I should investigate to confirm what happened.
Do not assume missing events actually occurred.

This is particularly useful because an investigation often contains gaps.

For example, you may want to check:

SSH authentication logs
shell history
process creation logs
DNS queries
firewall connections
file creation timestamps
EDR events

Step 4 – Separate Facts from Hypotheses

One important rule is to avoid treating AI-generated assumptions as evidence.

Ask:

Separate this investigation into:

1. Confirmed facts
2. Possible explanations
3. Evidence still required

This makes the output much more useful during an investigation.

The Workflow

Raw Events
    ↓
AI
    ↓
Incident Timeline
    ↓
Identify Gaps
    ↓
Collect More Evidence
    ↓
Validate Findings

AI doesn’t replace forensic analysis, but it can make a large collection of events much easier to organize and investigate.

Tip solutie

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