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Global Accelerated Learning • Est. 1999
Glossary Term Order of Volatility

Training Camp • Cybersecurity Glossary

What is Order of Volatility?

Order of volatility is the forensic principle, defined in RFC 3227, of collecting the most ephemeral evidence first to avoid losing volatile data.

Glossary > Incident Response & Forensics > Order of Volatility

Understanding Order of Volatility

Order of volatility is the digital forensics principle of collecting evidence from the most ephemeral data sources first before they are lost, then proceeding to more persistent ones. As described in RFC 3227, the typical sequence runs from CPU registers and cache, to RAM and routing tables, to running processes and network connections, then disk and finally archival media and backups. Following this order preserves the maximum amount of recoverable evidence during incident response.

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