Yesterday’s release of the free forensic test images and CTFs took off fast.  Downloads, shares, and discussions across social media haven’t slowed down. Over 38,000 views in just 2 days. Goodness.

That tells me something important: practitioners don’t just want datasets to play with; they want real data to practice on and tools to make sense of it.

TERABYTES OF FORENSIC TEST IMAGES
HUNDREDS OF CTFs

https://t.co/dsUPfRNMxH #DFIR #CTF pic.twitter.com/Su4YFzbWAf

— DFIR Training (@DFIRTraining) October 23, 2025

So let’s talk about the next step. You have access to a universe of data, but now what? How to access it? For tools you don’t have, there are free and free-for-a-time-limit tools you can use.