Table of Contents for
System Forensics, Investigation, and Response, 3rd Edition

Version ebook / Retour

Cover image for bash Cookbook, 2nd Edition System Forensics, Investigation, and Response, 3rd Edition by Easttom Published by Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2017
  1. Cover Page
  2. Contents
  3. System Forensics, Investigation, and Response
  4. Title Page
  5. Copyright Page
  6. Content
  7. Preface
  8. About the Author
  9. PART I Introduction to Forensics
  10. CHAPTER 1 Introduction to Forensics
  11. What Is Computer Forensics?
  12. Understanding the Field of Digital Forensics
  13. Knowledge Needed for Computer Forensics Analysis
  14. The Daubert Standard
  15. U.S. Laws Affecting Digital Forensics
  16. Federal Guidelines
  17. CHAPTER SUMMARY
  18. KEY CONCEPTS AND TERMS
  19. CHAPTER 1 ASSESSMENT
  20. CHAPTER 2 Overview of Computer Crime
  21. How Computer Crime Affects Forensics
  22. Identity Theft
  23. Hacking
  24. Cyberstalking and Harassment
  25. Fraud
  26. Non-Access Computer Crimes
  27. Cyberterrorism
  28. CHAPTER SUMMARY
  29. KEY CONCEPTS AND TERMS
  30. CHAPTER 2 ASSESSMENT
  31. CHAPTER 3 Forensic Methods and Labs
  32. Forensic Methodologies
  33. Formal Forensic Approaches
  34. Documentation of Methodologies and Findings
  35. Evidence-Handling Tasks
  36. How to Set Up a Forensic Lab
  37. Common Forensic Software Programs
  38. Forensic Certifications
  39. CHAPTER SUMMARY
  40. KEY CONCEPTS AND TERMS
  41. CHAPTER 3 ASSESSMENT
  42. PART II Technical Overview: SystemForensics Tools, Techniques, and Methods
  43. CHAPTER 4 Collecting, Seizing, and Protecting Evidence
  44. Proper Procedure
  45. Handling Evidence
  46. Storage Formats
  47. Forensic Imaging
  48. RAID Acquisitions
  49. CHAPTER SUMMARY
  50. KEY CONCEPTS AND TERMS
  51. CHAPTER 4 ASSESSMENT
  52. CHAPTER LAB
  53. CHAPTER 5 Understanding Techniques for Hiding and Scrambling Information
  54. Steganography
  55. Encryption
  56. CHAPTER SUMMARY
  57. KEY CONCEPTS AND TERMS
  58. CHAPTER 5 ASSESSMENT
  59. CHAPTER 6 Recovering Data
  60. Undeleting Data
  61. Recovering Information from Damaged Media
  62. File Carving
  63. CHAPTER SUMMARY
  64. KEY CONCEPTS AND TERMS
  65. CHAPTER 6 ASSESSMENT
  66. CHAPTER 7 Email Forensics
  67. How Email Works
  68. Email Protocols
  69. Email Headers
  70. Tracing Email
  71. Email Server Forensics
  72. Email and the Law
  73. CHAPTER SUMMARY
  74. KEY CONCEPTS AND TERMS
  75. CHAPTER 7 ASSESSMENT
  76. CHAPTER 8 Windows Forensics
  77. Windows Details
  78. Volatile Data
  79. Windows Swap File
  80. Windows Logs
  81. Windows Directories
  82. Index.dat
  83. Windows Files and Permissions
  84. The Registry
  85. Volume Shadow Copy
  86. Memory Forensics
  87. CHAPTER SUMMARY
  88. KEY CONCEPTS AND TERMS
  89. CHAPTER 8 ASSESSMENT
  90. CHAPTER 9 Linux Forensics
  91. Linux and Forensics
  92. Linux Basics
  93. Linux File Systems
  94. Linux Logs
  95. Linux Directories
  96. Shell Commands for Forensics
  97. Kali Linux Forensics
  98. Forensics Tools for Linux
  99. CHAPTER SUMMARY
  100. KEY CONCEPTS AND TERMS
  101. CHAPTER 9 ASSESSMENT
  102. CHAPTER 10 Macintosh Forensics
  103. Mac Basics
  104. Macintosh Logs
  105. Directories
  106. Macintosh Forensic Techniques
  107. How to Examine a Mac
  108. Can You Undelete in Mac?
  109. CHAPTER SUMMARY
  110. KEY CONCEPTS AND TERMS
  111. CHAPTER 10 ASSESSMENT
  112. CHAPTER 11 Mobile Forensics
  113. Cellular Device Concepts
  114. What Evidence You Can Get from a Cell Phone
  115. Seizing Evidence from a Mobile Device
  116. JTAG
  117. CHAPTER SUMMARY
  118. KEY CONCEPTS AND TERMS
  119. CHAPTER 11 ASSESSMENT
  120. CHAPTER 12 Performing Network Analysis
  121. Network Packet Analysis
  122. Network Traffic Analysis
  123. Router Forensics
  124. Firewall Forensics
  125. CHAPTER SUMMARY
  126. KEY CONCEPTS AND TERMS
  127. CHAPTER 12 ASSESSMENT
  128. PART III Incident Response and Resources
  129. CHAPTER 13 Incident and Intrusion Response
  130. Disaster Recovery
  131. Preserving Evidence
  132. Adding Forensics to Incident Response
  133. CHAPTER SUMMARY
  134. KEY CONCEPTS AND TERMS
  135. CHAPTER 13 ASSESSMENT
  136. CHAPTER 14 Trends and Future Directions
  137. Technical Trends
  138. Legal and Procedural Trends
  139. CHAPTER SUMMARY
  140. KEY CONCEPTS AND TERMS
  141. CHAPTER 14 ASSESSMENT
  142. CHAPTER 15 System Forensics Resources
  143. Tools to Use
  144. Resources
  145. Laws
  146. CHAPTER SUMMARY
  147. KEY CONCEPTS AND TERMS
  148. CHAPTER 15 ASSESSMENT
  149. APPENDIX A Answer Key
  150. APPENDIX B Standard Acronyms
  151. Glossary of Key Terms
  152. References
  153. Index

Windows Directories

Certain directories in Windows are more likely than others to contain evidence. Obviously, a technically savvy criminal can erase evidence; however, not all criminals are technically savvy, and even those who are might have missed something. Or, the computer might have been seized before they could erase the incriminating evidence. Although there are many directories on a computer, the following are the most forensically interesting:

  • C:\Windows documents and settings—This folder is the default location to save documents. A criminal can save documents anywhere on the computer; however, it is a good idea to check this folder.

  • C:\users—This is where you will find user profile information, documents, pictures, and more for all users, not just the one currently logged on.

  • C:\Program Files—By default, programs are installed in subdirectories of this directory.

  • C:\Program Files (x86)—In 64-bit systems, 32-bit programs are installed here.

  • C:\Users\username\Documents—The current user’s Documents folder. This is a very important place to look.

And, of course, you should do a general search of the entire suspect drive—not just these specific folders and directories.

UserAssist

UserAssist is a feature of Windows 2000 and later. Its purpose is to help programs launch faster. For this reason, it maintains a record of programs that have been launched. By examining the appropriate Registry key for UserAssist, one can view all the programs that have been executed on that machine. This information is stored in the Registry (HKEY_ CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\UserAssist), but it’s encrypted, so you’ll need something like the free UserAssist tool to find out more.

You can get the UserAssist tool from http://www.downloadcrew.com/article/23805-userassist. An example of this tool is shown in FIGURE 8-7. As you can see, this gives a lot of information as to what programs were run, and when.

Most major forensics tools, including Guidance Software’s Encase, AccessData’s Forensic Toolkit (FTK), and Passmark’s OSForensics, will retrieve the UserAssist entries, as well as other entries, for you.

FIGURE 8-7
UserAssist.

Used with permission from Microsoft

Unallocated/Slack Space

You will need to search the entire disk to locate all relevant documents, logs, emails, and more in most of your cases. At times, though, you may want to find relevant data only in the unallocated space. To do so, you would search the unallocated space for keywords. Tools such as AccessData’s FTK allow an investigator to take an entire image and try to identify all of the documents in the file system, including the unallocated space. If you want to search the entire disk many times over, tools such as FTK can help you build a full-text index. Full-text indexing allows you to build a binary tree–based dictionary of all the words that exist in an image, and you can search the entire image for those words in seconds.

Alternate Data Streams

This is a clever way that a criminal can hide things on the target computer. Alternate data streams are essentially a method of attaching one file to another file, using NTFS. According to Irongeek.com:

Alternative Data Stream support was added to NTFS (Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP) to help support Macintosh Hierarchical File System (HFS), which uses resource forks to store icons and other information for a file. While this is the intended use (as well as a few Windows internal functions) there are other uses for Alternative Data Streams that should concern system administrators and security professionals. Using Alternative Data Streams a user can easily hide files that can go undetected unless closely inspected.

For example, if a criminal wants to attach a script to a text file, the following command will attach that script using alternate data streams:

type somescript.vbs> ADSFile.txt:somescript.vbs

A number of tools are available that will detect whether files are attached via alternate data streams. One of the most widely known is List Alternate Data Streams. You can download it for free from http://www.heysoft.de/en/software/lads.php?lang=EN.