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Course 36 - Windows Forensics and Tools | Episode 1: Debunking Myths and Mastering Methodology
Published 1 month, 1 week ago
Description
In this lesson, you’ll learn about: digital forensics in Windows environments1. What is Digital Forensics?
- Also known as computer forensics
- The application of scientific methods to digital investigations
- Identify digital evidence
- Preserve its integrity
- Analyze findings
- Present results for legal use
- Evidence must be accurate, repeatable, and legally admissible
- Majority of systems run Windows
- Widely used in:
- Personal computing
- Enterprise environments
- Undocumented internal features
- Limited low-level access
- Complex system structure
- Windows forensics requires specialized knowledge and tools
- Developed by the SANS Institute
- Confirm incident
- Define scope
- Identify affected systems
- Understand what happened and where
- Document:
- Hardware specs
- OS configuration
- Network role
- Provides context for analysis
- Volatile Data:
- RAM
- Running processes
- Network connections
- Non-Volatile Data:
- Hard drives
- Logs
- Files
- Chain of custody
- Data integrity verification (hashing)
- Never alter original evidence
- Reconstruct system activity over time
- When did the attack happen?
- What actions were performed?
- Examine:
- File systems
- Program execution
- Deleted files
- Reveals user and attacker behavior
- Search for:
- Keywords
- Signatures
- Binary patterns
- Detect malware traces or hidden data
- Recover data from:
- Unallocated space
- Slack space
- Deleted ≠ gone
- Create formal report
- Verified findings
- Methods used
- Evidence references
- Must be clear, objective, and defensible in court
- Registry
- Prefetch files
- Restore points
- Recycle Bin
- Program execution history
- User activity
- System changes
- Incident response
- Malware analysis
- Legal investigations
- Understand:
- Attack methods
- Impact
- Responsible actions
- Digital forensics applies scientific investigation to digital