Intelligence
What is Artifact?
A concrete object recovered from an intrusion, such as a file, a filename, a registry entry or a captured screenshot.
An artifact (or artefact) is a concrete object left behind by activity on a system: a file, a filename, a registry value, a log line, a prefetch entry, a screenshot. Artifacts are what an investigator actually holds, as opposed to the conclusions drawn from them.
In forensics, artifacts are usually grouped by what they prove. Some show that a program existed, some show that it ran, and some show who ran it and when. Knowing which question an artifact answers keeps an analyst from overstating what it means.