You're reading from Windows Forensics Cookbook

Product typeBook

Published inAug 2017

Publisher

ISBN-139781784390495

Edition1st Edition

Tools

Windows OS

Concepts

Forensics

Authors (2):

Scar de Courcier

Oleg Skulkin

View More author details

Windows Memory Acquisition and Analysis

In this chapter, we will cover the following recipes:

Windows memory acquisition with Belkasoft RAM Capturer
Windows memory acquisition with DumpIt
Windows memory image analysis with Belkasoft Evidence Center
Windows memory image analysis with Volatility
Variations in Windows versions

Introduction

Memory analysis is a relatively new, but increasingly relevant field. A memory image can be acquired in the same way as a physical image, but by using different tools, some of which will be discussed in this section.

The image can be stored as one of the many formats, depending on the tool used to acquire the image. Once an investigator has the image, they can then analyse the data within it.

One of the main challenges associated with memory forensics is data preservation. Although your only option in a given investigation may be to power down a system and then image the data therein, in reality this ends up having an impact on other potential data sources that might be important later on. It is vital, therefore, to have a thorough understanding of the scene you are investigating and the specific needs of the case before you decide which method to choose. Any time...

Windows memory acquisition with Belkasoft RAM Capturer

Belkasoft RAM Capturer is a free tool any digital forensic examiner should have in their kit. It's tiny, easy to use, and has the ability to acquire memory from Windows systems, including Windows 10, even if they are protected by an active anti-debugging or anti-dumping system.

Getting ready

You have two options for downloading the tool. If you are a Belkasoft customer and have a Belkasoft Evidence Center license, go to your customer portal, where you can find a Belkasoft RAM Capturer download link in the FREE PRODUCTS section. If you are not a customer, just go to the DOWNLOAD section on the Belkasoft website, choose the product you want to download - in our case...

Windows memory acquisition with DumpIt

DumpIt is a free memory imaging tool from Comae Memory Toolkit. It's a fusion of Win32dd and Win64dd in one executable. It's extremely easy to use: even a non-technical person can use it in emergency situations. DumpIt supports all modern Windows versions, from XP to 10, both 32 and 64-bit. Also, the tool has a very important feature: it displays the Directory Table Base and the address of the debugging data structures during the acquisition process.

Getting ready

To get your free copy of DumpIt, go to Comae Technologies' website and click on GET TOOLS. After you provide some information, including your first name, last name, company name, email address, phone number and...

Windows memory image analysis with Belkasoft Evidence Center

In the previous recipes, we successfully created two memory forensic images, one with Belkasoft Live RAM Capturer, and the other with DumpIt. Now it's time to perform analysis. Let's start from the first image and use Belkasoft Evidence Center for analysis.

Belkasoft Evidence Center is a powerful digital forensics tool, capable of parsing data not only from memory images, but also from images of computer drives and mobile devices. From a memory dump, it can extract valuable artifacts such as remnants of communications via social networks, messengers, chat rooms, webmail systems, data from cloud services, web-browsing artifacts, and so on.

Getting ready

...

Windows memory image analysis with Volatility

The Volatility Framework is an open source collection of tools written in Python for the extraction of digital artifacts from memory images. This time, we will use the second memory image, obtained earlier with DumpIt, as a data source to show you how to use this tool set for memory forensics.

Getting ready

The Volatility Framework is an open source toolkit, so it's cross-platform, which means that you can use any operating system family you want - Windows, Linux, or mac OS. Of course, you can build these tools from source, but there are also so-called standalone executables for all the operating systems mentioned. As this cookbook is about forensic examination of Windows...

Variations in Windows versions

As you already know from the first chapter, nowadays we have a number of different Windows versions widely used both by private persons and businesses. Of course, this has an impact on Windows operating system forensic examinations, including Windows memory forensics.

Getting ready

Knowing the Windows version and its type is very important, both in the acquisition and analysis stages. There are a few ways to collect this information. We will cover some in this recipe.

How to do it...

The easiest way to find out which version a computer is...

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Authors (2)

Scar de Courcier

Scar de Courcier is Senior Editor at digital forensics website Forensic Focus. She also works as an independent consultant on online and offline child protection projects. In her spare time, she enjoys swimming, pretending she lives on the USS Voyager, and hanging out with her cat.
Read more about Scar de Courcier

Oleg Skulkin

Oleg Skulkin is the Head of Digital Forensics and Malware Analysis Laboratory at Group-IB. Oleg has worked in the fields of digital forensics, incident response, and cyber threat intelligence and research for over a decade, fueling his passion for uncovering new techniques used by hidden adversaries. Oleg has authored and co-authored multiple blog posts, papers, and books on related topics and holds GCFA and GCTI certifications.
Read more about Oleg Skulkin

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