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Tool GovernanceResearchBlog

AGRC Framework / Domain 11

11

DFIR

Digital Forensics & Incident Response

NIST SP 800-61 (Computer Security Incident Handling Guide), The SCIF Quarantine Protocols.

Domain Objective

Traditional Incident Response (IR) playbooks fail catastrophically when applied to "Thinking" malware and autonomous breaches. Treating an AI breach like a static malware infection—by simply "pulling the plug" on the container—destroys the highly volatile reasoning context required by insurers and legal counsel to reconstruct the liability chain. This domain enforces Automated Forensic Preservation and Live Quarantine, ensuring the enterprise captures the intellect of the adversary without destroying the evidence.

Controls

4

DFIR-11.1

The "Cognitive Kill Switch" (Out-of-Band Severance)

The Rule — Control Statement

The Incident Response (IR) architecture shall establish automated, out-of-band kill switches that physically sever the agent's execution capabilities.

The Why — Fiduciary Rationale

An enterprise must not rely on the agent's orchestration software (e.g., LangChain, AutoGen) to "shut itself down," as the orchestration layer itself may be the component compromised by the polymorphic payload.

The How — Implementation Standard

The kill switch must operate at the hypervisor, API Gateway, or SD-WAN level, instantly severing the agent container's network egress, API token validity, and database connections entirely independent of the application stack.

The Proof — Continuous Attestation Evidence

Infrastructure-level incident response runbooks and automated testing logs demonstrating the successful out-of-band isolation of active containers within sub-second thresholds.

DFIR-11.2

Ephemeral State Preservation (Pre-Termination Dumps)

The Rule — Control Statement

Prior to the termination or destruction of a compromised agent container, the system must execute an automated, cryptographically signed dump of the agent's highly volatile cognitive state.

The Why — Fiduciary Rationale

Killing an agent container wipes the volatile memory (RAM, the immediate context window, the scratchpad, and hidden reasoning states) required to forensically prove how the Agent was socially engineered or what JIT-polymorphic code it generated. Destroying this data constitutes spoliation of evidence.

The How — Implementation Standard

IR playbooks must automate the extraction of the agent's RAM, active context window, and queued MCP tool calls, routing them to immutable WORM (Write Once, Read Many) storage before the SIGKILL or termination command is issued to the hypervisor.

The Proof — Continuous Attestation Evidence

Incident response logs showing the successful generation, hashing, and storage of state-dumps timestamped immediately prior to container termination events.

DFIR-11.3

The Ghost Fleet Quarantine (Live Virology / SCIF Shunting)

The Rule — Control Statement

The architecture shall support dynamically shunting active, compromised agent containers into a network-isolated "Red Zone" honeypot rather than defaulting to immediate termination.

The Why — Fiduciary Rationale

Merely terminating an infected agent deletes critical intelligence regarding the attacker's post-exploitation playbook. The enterprise must observe the pathogen to build the vaccine.

The How — Implementation Standard

Upon detection of a Category C breach (e.g., successful JIT malware generation), the infrastructure must utilize dynamic network routing (VLAN switching) to seamlessly migrate the infected container into a strictly air-gapped, heavily instrumented subnet (The SCIF) to observe the live virology without risking the production environment.

The Proof — Continuous Attestation Evidence

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) transition logs confirming the automated, seamless migration of compromised containers into isolated honeypot subnets during active Red Team simulations.

DFIR-11.4

Downstream Dependency Broadcast Notifications

The Rule — Control Statement

Upon the quarantine, severance, or decommissioning of an autonomous agent, the GRC system must automatically broadcast state-change alerts to all downstream applications and human workflows reliant on that agent.

The Why — Fiduciary Rationale

An autonomous enterprise operates as a mesh. If an agent is isolated by the kill switch, the enterprise must prevent a "silent failure" cascade where downstream business logic, API pipelines, or financial settlements grind to a halt waiting for inputs from a disconnected AI.

The How — Implementation Standard

The orchestration layer must maintain an active dependency graph. Quarantine events must trigger automated webhooks, SIEM alerts, and UI flags to instantly notify dependent systems and human supervisors that the upstream agent is offline.

The Proof — Continuous Attestation Evidence

Orchestration event logs correlating agent termination/quarantine events with sub-second dependency broadcast notifications to documented downstream subscribers.

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