Digital Investigation and the Trojan
Defense, Revisited
Golden G. Richard III
Professor of Computer Science and University Research Professor
Director, Greater New Orleans Center for Information Assurance (GNOCIA)
University of New Orleans
GIAC-certified Digital Forensics Investigator
Founder, Arcane Alloy, LLC
[email protected] / [email protected] / @nolaforensix http://www.cs.uno.edu/~golden
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Who?
Professor of Computer Science and University Research Professor, Director, Greater New Orleans Center for Information Assurance (GNOCIA), University of New Orleans
Digital forensics, OS internals, reverse engineering, offensive computing, pushing students to the brink of destruction, et al.
Founder, Arcane Alloy, LLC. http://www.arcanealloy.com
Digital forensics, reverse engineering, malware analysis, security research, tool development, training.
Co-Founder, Partner / Photographer, High ISO Music, LLC.
Music. Rock stars. Earplugs.
Copyright 2015 by Golden G. Richard III (@nolaforensix)
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Digital Forensics
“Tools and techniques to recover, preserve, and examine digital evidence stored on or transmitted
by digital devices.”
Computers, PDAs, cellular phones, videogame consoles, digital cameras, copy machines, printers, digital voice recorders…
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What That Really Means
• Data. “You only think it’s gone.”
• Sensitive data tenaciously clings to life.
• The vast majority of users—and lots of technical people, too— have no idea what’s really stored on their digital devices…
• …and no ability to properly “clean up” even if they do suspect what’s there
Copyright 2015 by Golden G. Richard III (@nolaforensix)
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Where’s the Evidence?
Files and
Deleted Files
Filesystem metadata
Application metadata
Windows registry
Print spool files
Hibernation files
- Temp files
- Log files
Browser caches
Network traces
- Slack space
- Swap files
RAM: OS and app data
Volatile Evidence
structures
Copyright 2015 by Golden G. Richard III (@nolaforensix)
How awesome are we?
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File Carving
one cluster one sector
- unrelated disk blocks
- interesting file
header, e.g., 0x474946e8e761 (GIF) footer, e.g., 0x003B (GIF)
“milestones” or “anti-milestones”
Copyright 2015 by Golden G. Richard III (@nolaforensix)
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Awesomeness Progression: File Carving
Can carve
Chaos: files, but
not very well
More accurate
- Faster
- can't
Yay!
carve files
Tools appear, but have issues
File type aware carving, et al
Fragmentation, damned spinning disks!
Manual hex editor stuff
Multithreading, better design
Images: https://easiersaidblogdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/hot_dogger.jpg http://cdn.bigbangfish.com/555/Cow/Cow-6.jpg, http://f.tqn.com/y/bbq/1/W/U/i/Big_green_egg_large.jpg http://i5.walmartimages.com/dfw/dce07b8c-bb22/k2-_95ea6c25-e9aa-418e-a3a2-8e48e62a9d2e.v1.jpg
Copyright 2015 by Golden G. Richard III (@nolaforensix)
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Memory Analysis
• physical memory dumping tool • VM memory snapshot • VM introspection
Capture RAM from live system
• strings • carving • Volatility
Analyze
Memory Dump
• VM introspection
Expose interesting volatile evidence
Copyright 2015 by Golden G. Richard III (@nolaforensix)
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Memory Analysis: Evidence
e.g., discover and analyze unauthorized programs
Processes (dead / alive)
e.g., detect keystroke loggers, hidden processes
Open files
e.g., find backdoors, connections to contraband sites
Network connections
Volatile registry contents
Volatile application data
portions of Windows registry that are never stored on disk
e.g., plaintext for encrypted material, chat messages, email fragments, volatile web browser history
volatile contents of clipboard
Clipboard data
Copyright 2015 by Golden G. Richard III (@nolaforensix)
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Awesomeness Progression: Memory Forensics
Pioneering efforts show great promise
More, more, more
Chaos: run strings?
Beyond
Windows
??
More attention to malware, filling in the gaps,
GPU stuff, etc.
pt_finder et al
awesome but limited
…
Manual, run strings, little context
Mac,
Linux, BSD
functionality
Images: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/75/5a/37/755a37727586c57a19d42caa650d242e.jpg,, http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v136/Hell2Pay77/SS-trucks.jpg http://skateandannoy.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/sportsbars.jpg, http://gainesvillescene.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/dog-longboard.jpg
Copyright 2015 by Golden G. Richard III (@nolaforensix)
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Memory Analysis: 2004
$ grep –i murder /dev/mem
I loved Sally, but I murdered her in the park on… Murder Murderer! Blood is on your shoulders! Murderous You murdered my hamster! Murdered
Copyright 2015 by Golden G. Richard III (@nolaforensix)
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Detecting Hidden Resource Utilization
• Adversary: Direct Kernel Object Manipulation (DKOM) • Strategy: Deep analysis and cross-correlation of data kernel data structures to reveal hidden resource utilization
PID =
2260
Doubly-linked process list in Windows kernel
Processes continue to run because Windows
C:\> fu –ph 2260 scheduler handles
threads, not processes
PID = 2260
Copyright 2015 by Golden G. Richard III (@nolaforensix)
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Copyright 2015 by Golden G. Richard III (@nolaforensix)
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FU on PID 2260
DKOM Hidden Process Detection in Volatility
Copyright 2015 by Golden G. Richard III (@nolaforensix)
So we're awesome, right?
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Unfortunately
What evidence is present and what can be recovered?
How hard is it to recover?
Technical Difficulty Increasing
What “evidence”
Did malware play
a role? was actually
“recovered”?
Copyright 2015 by Golden G. Richard III (@nolaforensix)
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Unfortunately, Part 2
What evidence is present and what can be recovered?
How hard is it to recover?
Misinformation
Abounds
What “evidence”
Did malware play
a role? was actually
“recovered”?
Copyright 2015 by Golden G. Richard III (@nolaforensix)
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Digital Forensics
Settle Intellectual Property Disputes
Investigate Employee Misconduct
Uncover Fraud
Discover Insider Threats
Investigate Child Exploitation
Prosecute Thieves, Kidnappers, Murderers
Copyright 2015 by Golden G. Richard III (@nolaforensix)
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Digital Forensics
Settle Intellectual Property Disputes
Investigate Employee Misconduct
Uncover Fraud
malware
Discover Insider Threats
Investigate Child Exploitation
Prosecute Thieves, Kidnappers, Murderers
Copyright 2015 by Golden G. Richard III (@nolaforensix)