Windows Forensics Cookbook

Oleg Skulkin, Scar de Courcier

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781784391270
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencia de la computación
• Subtopic: Ciberseguridad

Maximize the power of Windows Forensics to perform highly effective forensic investigationsAbout This Book• Prepare and perform investigations using powerful tools for Windows, • Collect and validate evidence from suspects and computers and uncover clues that are otherwise difficult• Packed with powerful recipes to perform highly effective field investigationsWho This Book Is ForIf you are a forensic analyst or incident response professional who wants to perform computer forensics investigations for the Windows platform and expand your took kit, then this book is for you.What You Will Learn• Understand the challenges of acquiring evidence from Windows systems and overcome them• Acquire and analyze Windows memory and drive data with modern forensic tools.• Extract and analyze data from Windows file systems, shadow copies and the registry• Understand the main Windows system artifacts and learn how to parse data from them using forensic tools• See a forensic analysis of common web browsers, mailboxes, and instant messenger services• Discover how Windows 10 differs from previous versions and how to overcome the specific challenges it presents• Create a graphical timeline and visualize data, which can then be incorporated into the final report• Troubleshoot issues that arise while performing Windows forensicsIn DetailWindows Forensics Cookbook provides recipes to overcome forensic challenges and helps you carry out effective investigations easily on a Windows platform. You will begin with a refresher on digital forensics and evidence acquisition, which will help you to understand the challenges faced while acquiring evidence from Windows systems. Next you will learn to acquire Windows memory data and analyze Windows systems with modern forensic tools. We also cover some more in-depth elements of forensic analysis, such as how to analyze data from Windows system artifacts, parse data from the most commonly-used web browsers and email services, and effectively report on digital forensic investigations.You will see how Windows 10 is different from previous versions and how you can overcome the specific challenges it brings. Finally, you will learn to troubleshoot issues that arise while performing digital forensic investigations.By the end of the book, you will be able to carry out forensics investigations efficiently.Style and approachThis practical guide filled with hands-on, actionable recipes to detect, capture, and recover digital artifacts and deliver impeccable forensic outcomes.

Main Windows Operating System Artifacts

In this chapter, we will cover the following recipes:

• Recycle bin content analysis with EnCase Forensic
• Recycle bin content analysis with Rifiuti2
• Recycle bin content analysis with Magnet AXIOM
• Event log analysis with FullEventLogView
• Event log analysis with Magnet AXIOM
• Event log recovery with EVTXtract
• LNK file analysis with EnCase Forensic
• LNK file analysis with LECmd
• LNK file analysis with Link Parser
• Prefetch file analysis with Magnet AXIOM
• Prefetch file parsing with PECmd
• Prefetch file recovery with Windows Prefetch Carver

Introduction

Some features of Windows operating systems produce a great number of valuable artifacts that can be further used as pieces of digital evidence. The most common sources of such artifacts are the Recycle Bin, Windows Event Logs, LNK files, and Prefetch files.

The Recycle Bin contains files and folders that have been deleted by the user via the right-click menu. In fact, these files are not deleted from the file system, but only moved from their original location into the Recycle Bin. There are two formats of the Recycle Bin: the Recycler format (Windows 2000, XP) - files are stored under C:\Recycler\%SID%\ and their metadata is stored in the INFO2 file; and the $Recycle.Bin format - files are stored under C:\$Recycle.Bin\%SID%\ in $R file, and their metadata is stored in $I files.

As you can guess from the name, Windows Event Logs collect information about different system events. Windows 2000, XP, and 2003 (except for server versions) store these logs in three files: Application, System, and Security. These files can be found under C:\Windows\system32\config. With Windows Vista, the Event Logs format has been changed to XML. These EVTX files can be found under C:\Windows\System32\Winevt\Logs.

LNK files or Windows Shortcut files refer to other files: applications, documents, and so on. These can be found system-wide, and can help a digital forensic examiner to uncover some of the suspect's activities, including recently used files, applications, and so on.

And, finally, Prefetch files. You can find these files in C:\Windows\Prefetch, and they contain lots of valuable information about used applications, including their run count, last run date and time, and so on.

In this chapter, you will learn how to analyze all of these sources of digital evidence with both commercial and free digital forensics tools.

Recycle Bin content analysis with EnCase Forensic

EnCase is a well-known and court-accepted commercial digital forensics tool developed by Guidance Software. It is used by examiners from all over the world, both in law enforcement agencies and in the private sector. It supports the whole investigation life cycle, from collecting to reporting. What's more, it has a built-in scripting language - EnScript - so users can write their own scripts to solve digital forensic problems. A lot of useful EnScripts are available for free at EnCase App Central. In this recipe, we will show you how to use this powerful tool to examine Windows Recycle Bin contents.

Getting ready

Unfortunately, Guidance Software doesn't provide trial versions of EnCase Forensic, so to follow this recipe, you must have a valid licence. If you have one, make sure you are using the latest version of the tool: EnCase Forensic 8.

How to do it...

The steps for Recycle bin Content Analysis in Encase Forensic are as follows:

1. Let's start by creating a new case. To do this, click on the New Case link on the left. The Case Options window will pop up, as you see in the following figure:

Figure 7.1. Case Options

2. We have chosen #2 Forensic template, and there is a lot of information to fill in. Let's start with Case information. Here, we have 6 fields to fill in: Case Number, Case Data, Examiner Name, Examiner I.D., Agency, and Description. All fields are self-explanatory, so just fill them in.
3. Let's go to Name and location. Type your case's name or number in the first field, and choose the Base case folder (case files will be stored here). The Full case path field will be filled in automatically.
4. Go to Evidence cache locations. You can use the same folder to store cache (to do this, tick Use base case folder for primary evidence cache), or choose one or two folders to store it.
5. Finally, if you want your case to be backed up, tick the Backup every option and choose its value. Don't forget about choosing the backup folder and the maximum size of the backup. Once everything is filled in, just click OK.
6. Now you see a window with your case information, and you are ready to add a forensic image. To do this, click the Add Evidence File link on the left.

Figure 7.2. Adding evidence

As you can see in the preceding screenshot, there are 6 evidence source options: you can Add Local Device (don't forget to use a writeblocker), a remote evidence source, E01 or RAW image, and so on. You already have both, an E01 and a RAW image, so you can use one of them. We are going to use an E01 image. If you t...