Where To Begin With CrowdStrike Incidents?
How to Investigate Security Events Using CrowdStrike Falcon Incidents
From alert to root cause using Falcon telemetry, detections, and Real Time Response
CrowdStrike Falcon has become a gold standard in modern endpoint security—delivering behavioral detections, rich telemetry, and rapid response capabilities through a lightweight, cloud-native platform. But the real power of CrowdStrike isn’t just blocking malware—it’s enabling fast, accurate event investigation.
In this blog, we’ll walk through a practical, structured approach to investigating security events using CrowdStrike Falcon Incidents, including:
- How incidents are generated
- What telemetry matters most
- How to pivot using Process Graphs
- How to determine scope and impact
- How to validate findings and close out investigations
Whether you’re part of a SOC, an MSSP, or an IR team, this guide will help you take CrowdStrike investigations from reactive triage to high-confidence root-cause analysis.
- Understanding CrowdStrike Incidents
Before starting an investigation, it’s important to understand how CrowdStrike models threat activity.
A CrowdStrike Incident is a collection of:
- Detection(s) triggered by behavioral analysis
- Processes and sub-processes tied together in a storyline
- Hosts involved
- Indicators (hashes, domains, commands, etc.)
- Tactics & Techniques mapped to MITRE ATT&CK
- End-user and host context
CrowdStrike does not rely on static signatures. Instead, it detects malicious behaviors, often catching:
- Malware execution
- Fileless attacks
- PowerShell misuse
- Credential dumping
- Lateral movement
- Persistence artifacts
- Exploitation attempts
This means every incident contains behavior-rich telemetry, giving analysts strong visibility into what actually happened.
- Start With the Incident Dashboard
When an alert arrives, begin with the Incident Overview Page:
Look for:
- Severity & confidence level
- User & host involved
- MITRE tactics detected
- Exact time the indicators began
- How many detections this host/user generated recently
This forms your initial triage picture: Is this a one-off event? Part of a broader pattern? A potential intrusion?
- Dive Into the Process Graph (The Most Important Step)
CrowdStrike’s Process Graph is the centerpiece of any investigation.
It shows a complete visual storyline:
- Parent process
- Child processes
- Command line arguments
- Network connections
- Script engines (PowerShell, WScript)
- Persistence modifications
- File writes / registry keys
What to look for:
- Suspicious Parent-Child Relationships
Examples:
- winword.exe → powershell.exe
- excel.exe → cmd.exe
- svchost.exe spawning tools it normally shouldn’t
- explorer.exe spawning encoded scripts
- Logical anomalies
- Tools running from temp folders
- Unsigned binaries
- Rare or “never-before-seen” processes
- Encoded or obfuscated command lines
- Behavioral flags
CrowdStrike often displays:
- “Credential theft attempt”
- “Suspicious script execution”
- “Privilege escalation behavior”
- “Lateral movement pattern”
Many APT behaviors will show up here long before a SIEM alert fires.
- Review the Execution Details & Telemetry
For each detection, review:
Command Lines
Look for:
- Base64 encoding
- Hidden windows (-WindowStyle Hidden, -nop)
- Download cradles (Invoke-WebRequest, bitsadmin)
- LOLBins (mshta, regsvr32, wscript)
File Modifications
- New binaries dropped in suspicious paths
- Modified startup folders
- Unexpected DLL injections
Registry Modifications
Common persistence paths:
HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services
Network Activity
CrowdStrike shows:
- C2 IPs or domains
- TOR exit nodes
- Rare geolocations
- DNS tunneling patterns
Each data point helps paint the picture of the attacker’s intent.
- Scope the Incident: One Host or Many?
Next, determine blast radius.
Key questions:
✔ Is this activity isolated to one endpoint?
Search Falcon for:
- “Same hash on other hosts”
- Similar detections across the environment
- Persistence artifacts on multiple endpoints
✔ Is the user account compromised?
Review for:
- Impossible travel
- Excessive authentication failures
- MFA fatigue
- Privileged account usage anomalies
✔ Has lateral movement occurred?
Hunt for:
- WMI execution logs
- PsExec activity
- RDP logons outside business hours
CrowdStrike’s Threat Graph helps uncover lateral movement quickly.
- Take Action Using Real Time Response (RTR)
Once confirmed malicious, take action directly inside CrowdStrike:
Contain the host
Stops network communications—useful for malware or ransomware.
Kill the process tree
Terminate malicious activity safely.
Quarantine files
Remove scripts, binaries, or droppers.
Collect forensic artifacts
Such as:
- Memory dumps
- MFT logs
- Prefetch files
- Browser history
Run PowerShell commands via RTR
Helpful for:
- Persistence checks
- Dumping autoruns
- Reviewing lateral movement indicators
RTR significantly speeds up eradication.
- Validate the Root Cause
Before closing the incident, ensure you answer:
- How did it start? Email? Web exploit? USB? Lateral movement?
- What was the attacker’s objective? Recon? Persistence? Credential theft?
- Was persistence established? Scheduled task? Registry key? Service install?
- Was data accessed or exfiltrated? Look at network + file telemetry.
If root cause is unconfirmed, the risk remains.
- Document Findings & Improve Detection Logic
Good investigations refine your SOC’s future response by:
- Updating SIEM correlation logic
- Adding detections for similar behavior
- Updating SOAR playbooks
- Improving endpoint exception policies
- Training analysts
CrowdStrike’s MITRE mapping helps connect your incident to known adversary techniques, making gap analysis easier.
Final Thoughts: CrowdStrike Makes Event Investigation Faster & More Confident
CrowdStrike Falcon’s behavioral approach means:
- You don’t rely on IOCs
- You can trace full execution paths
- Storyline gives context other EDRs lack
- RTR lets you respond immediately
Need help investigating security events? Our team is here—contact us today.