What technique refers to missing events related to systems downstream from a failed system?

The technique that refers to missing events related to systems downstream from a failed system is event masking. This occurs when the failure of one system prevents the logging or reporting of events from other dependent systems, effectively masking those events.

In digital forensics or incident response, understanding this concept is crucial because it highlights the importance of tracing how failures in one area can obscure visibility into the impacts on other parts of the infrastructure. When a system fails, it may not only halt its own logging mechanisms but also disrupt the collection and transmission of events from systems that rely on the failed system, leading to gaps in the incident data that investigators need to analyze.

While event correlation and payload correlation involve analyzing relationships and associations between events, they do not specifically address the phenomenon of events being hidden or missed due to a failure in another system. Root cause analysis focuses on identifying the underlying reason for a problem, which is related but distinct from observing the downstream impacts of system failures.