State of Enterprise DFIR 2025 Report: Remote collections, the surge in AI usage, and the growth of SaaS-based tools
It’s here! The Magnet Forensics 2025 State of Enterprise DFIR report is now available. Based on a survey of 350+ DFIR professionals, we’ve analyzed the data and captured the key challenges faced by DFIR professionals in corporate and service provider environments.
Download our fifth annual report to learn how your peers see their digital investigations evolving and our expert’s recommendations on the most important trends of 2025.
Key findings
In this year’s report, we explore four key findings including recommendations and commentary from our digital forensic experts to support you in addressing these issues:
- DFIR professionals bring a unique skill set to support essential corporate functions. DFIR professionals contribute to a wide range of management duties, including reducing cyber risk, internal matters, and supporting regulatory compliance and litigation. However, while these areas strongly benefit from—or in some cases outright require—skills that only DFIR professionals have, survey responses suggest leadership may not fully appreciate this reality.
- Remote collection and multisource analysis are essential for investigations. Our report finds 71% of DFIR practitioners struggle with remote collection, impacting their efficiency. Similarly, increased reliance on mobile collection presents challenges in accessing devices and performing critical full file system (FFS) extractions. Modern solutions can solve these issues, but organizations must provide DFIR professionals with the right tools.
- DFIR practitioners face significant internal challenges. Budget constraints, repetitive tasks, and limited access or permissions are some of the most pressing challenges investigators face, yet all are within organizational control. Collaboration with IT can also be difficult, particularly when deploying or integrating new tools. To maintain an effective and up-to-date DFIR stack, organizations must prioritize resolving these manageable issues.
- AI and SaaS are rapidly reshaping corporate digital forensics. The use of AI in investigations surged from 21% to 94% in just one year, while 79% of respondents now use SaaS-based tools. This shift highlights a strong preference for efficiency, scalability, and flexibility, despite concerns about integration and security.
We are confident you will find this year’s report insightful and gain actionable recommendations to inform your DFIR strategies. We’ll share more blogs and webinars exploring the top challenges and trends in this year’s report to help you with your day-to-day investigations.
Download the State of Enterprise DFIR 2025 Report now and learn more about what your peers are experiencing and how to meet current trends and challenges in 2025.
Additional resources
- Check out the interactive guide: Navigating digital investigations challenges: practical solutions for private sector DFIR leaders to explore how Magnet Forensics solutions can help DFIR teams.
- Explore the 10 reasons that you should be using cloud-based forensics solutions.