Guide to Computer Forensics

and Investigations
Sixth Edition

Chapter 9
Digital Forensics Analysis and Investigation

1
 Determining What Data to Collect and
Analyze (1 of 2)
• Examining and analyzing digital evidence depend on the nature of the
investigation
• And the amount of data to process
• Scope creep - when an investigation expands beyond the original description
• Because of unexpected evidence found
• Attorneys may ask investigators to examine other areas to recover more evidence
• Increases the time and resources needed to extract, analyze, and present evidence

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 Approaching Digital Forensics Cases (1 of 3)

• Begin a case by creating an investigation plan that defines the:

• Goal and scope of investigation
• Materials needed
• Tasks to perform
• The approach you take depends largely on the type of case you’re investigating
• Corporate, civil, or criminal

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 Approaching Digital Forensics Cases (2 of 3)

• Follow these basic steps for all digital forensics investigations:

1. For target drives, use recently wiped media that have been reformatted and
inspected for viruses
2. Inventory the hardware on the suspect’s computer, and note condition of seized
computer
3. For static acquisitions, remove original drive and check the date and time values in
system’s CMOS
4. Record how you acquired data from the suspect drive
5. Process drive’s contents methodically and logically
6. List all folders and files on the image or drive
7. Examine contents of all data files in all folders
8. Recover file contents for all password-protected files
9. Identify function of every executable file that doesn’t match hash values
10. Maintain control of all evidence and findings

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 Approaching Digital Forensics Cases (3 of 3)

• Refining and Modifying the Investigation Plan

• Even if initial plan is sound, at times you may need to deviate from it and follow
evidence
• Knowing the types of data to look for helps you make the best use of your time
• The key is to start with a plan but remain flexible in the face of new evidence

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 Validating Forensic Data

• Ensuring the integrity of data collected is essential for presenting evidence in

court
• Most forensic tools offer hashing of image files
• Using advanced hexadecimal editors ensures data integrity

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 Validating with Hexadecimal Editors (1 of 3)

• Advanced hexadecimal editors offer features not available in digital forensics

tools, such as:
• Hashing specific files or sectors
• With the hash value in hand
• You can use a forensics tool to search for a suspicious file that might have had its
name changed to look like an innocuous file
• WinHex provides MD5 and SHA-1 hashing algorithms

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 Validating with Hexadecimal Editors (2 of 3)

• Advantage of recording hash values

• You can determine whether data has changed
• Block-wise hashing
• A process that builds a data set of hashes of sectors from the original file
• Then examines sectors on the suspect’s drive to see whether any other sectors match
• If an identical hash value is found, you have confirmed that the file was stored on the
suspect’s drive

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 Validating with Hexadecimal Editors (3 of 3)

• Using Hash Values to Discriminate Data

• AccessData has its own hashing database, Known File Filter (KFF)
• KFF filters known program files from view and contains has values of known illegal
files
• It compares known file hash values with files on your evidence drive to see whether
they contain suspicious data
• Other digital forensics tools can import the NSRL database and run hash comparisons

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 Addressing Data-Hiding Techniques

• Data hiding - changing or manipulating a file to conceal information

• Techniques:
• Hiding entire partitions
• Changing file extensions
• Setting file attributes to hidden
• Bit-shifting
• Using encryption
• Setting up password protection

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 Hiding Files by Using the OS

• One of the first techniques to hide data:

• Changing file extensions
• Advanced digital forensics tools check file headers
• Compare the file extension to verify that it’s correct
• If there’s a discrepancy, the tool flags the file as a possible altered file
• Another hiding technique
• Selecting the Hidden attribute in a file’s Properties dialog box

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 Hiding Partitions (1 of 4)

• By using the Windows diskpart remove letter command

• You can unassign the partition’s letter, which hides it from view in File Explorer
• To unhide, use the diskpart assign letter command
• Other disk management tools:
• IM-Magic, EaseUS Partition Master, and Linux Grand Unified Bootloader (GRUB)

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 Hiding Partitions (2 of 4)

• To detect whether a partition has been hidden

• Account for all disk space when examining an evidence drive
• Analyze any disk areas containing space you can’t account for
• Many digital forensics tools can detect and view a hidden partition

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Hiding Partitions (3 of 4)

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Hiding Partitions (4 of 4)

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 Marking Bad Clusters

• A data-hiding technique used in FAT file systems is placing sensitive or

incriminating data in free or slack space on disk partition clusters
• Involves using old utilities such as Norton DiskEdit
• Can mark good clusters as bad clusters in the FAT table so the OS considers
them unusable
• Only way they can be accessed from the OS is by changing them to good clusters with
a disk editor
• DiskEdit runs only in MS-DOS and can access only FAT-formatted disk media

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 Bit-Shifting

• Some users use a low-level encryption program that changes the order of
binary data
• Makes altered data unreadable to secure a file, users run an assembler program (also
called a “macro”) to scramble bits
• Run another program to restore the scrambled bits to their original order
• Bit shifting changes data from readable code to data that looks like binary
executable code
• WinHex and Hex Workshop includes a feature for shifting bits

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 Understanding Steganalysis Methods (1 of
3)
• Steganography - comes from the Greek word for “hidden writing”
• Hiding messages in such a way that only the intended recipient knows the message is
there
• Steganalysis - term for detecting and analyzing steganography files
• Digital watermarking - developed as a way to protect file ownership
• Usually not visible when used for steganography

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 Understanding Steganalysis Methods (2 of
3)
• A way to hide data is to use steganography tools
• Many are freeware or shareware
• Insert information into a variety of files
• If you encrypt a plaintext file with PGP and insert the encrypted text into a
steganography file
• Cracking the encrypted message is extremely difficult

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classroom use.
 Understanding Steganalysis Methods (3 of
3)
• Steganalysis methods
• Stego-only attack
• Known cover attack
• Known message attack
• Chosen stego attack
• Chosen message attack

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 Examining Encrypted Files

• To decode an encrypted file

• Users supply a password or passphrase
• Many encryption programs use a technology called “key escrow”
• Designed to recover encrypted data if users forget their passphrases or if the user key
is corrupted after a system failure
• Key sizes of 128 bits to 4096 bits make breaking them nearly impossible with
current technology

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 Recovering Passwords (1 of 4)

• Password-cracking tools are available for handling password-protected data or

systems
• Some are integrated into digital forensics tools
• Stand-alone tools:
• Last Bit
• AccessData PRTK
• ophcrack
• John the Ripper
• Passware

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 Recovering Passwords (2 of 4)

• Brute-force attacks
• Use every possible letter, number, and character found on a keyboard
• This method can require a lot of time and processing power
• Dictionary attack
• Uses common words found in the dictionary and tries them as passwords
• Most use a variety of languages

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 Recovering Passwords (3 of 4)

• With many programs, you can build profiles of a suspect to help determine his
or her password
• Many password-protected OSs and application store passwords in the form of
MD5 or SHA hash values
• A brute-force attack requires converting a dictionary password from plaintext to
a hash value
• Requires additional CPU cycle time

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 Recovering Passwords (4 of 4)

• Rainbow table
• A file containing the hash values for every possible password that can be generated
from a computer’s keyboard
• No conversion necessary, so it is faster than a brute-force or dictionary attack
• Salting passwords
• Alters hash values and makes cracking passwords more difficult

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