Super Timeline - Rob Lee & crew

So now you have probably heard about Super Timeline from Rob Lee's SAN page - http://blogs.sans.org/computer-forensics/2010/03/19/digital-forensic-sifting-super-timeline-analysis-and-creation/.

Good stuff, I don't know if you had tried log2time, but my first thought was wow, it would be great if it could go and find all of the artifact log files.  Well, they did that too - TimeScanner was added to search the drive and send the output to log2time, sweet!  Combined in the future is what I have read.

Rob Lee combined this with Carvey's registry time perl script, fls from the Sleuth Kit, and jacks it all together with old school mactime.pl, also from the SleuthKit.  Rob makes putting this easier by having these components in the SIFT Workstation (info found in the Super Timeline page).

Ok, intro done...  I have run some tests against older cases and loved the results*.  It USED to be a lot of work to get log source 1 and  log source 2, consolidate them, and review.  Then make a determination if log source 3 was needed.  This makes it much quicker and moves it up the SP index (SPI) appropriately, since the SPI is a combination of factors, including estimated time and estimated effectiveness in meeting the case goals.  SPI is an artifact from the digital forensic methodology I have been teaching my staffs and formalizing into a presentation for Defcon 18 and Black Hat 2010

*For legal purposes - I didn't find any data that changed any of my conclusions, but enhanced the  conclusions that I or my teams generated.

Defcon 18 and Black Hat

Anyone else getting excited (although it is really early) for Defcon 18 and Black Hat in Las Vegas?  I am!  I'm also working on a presentation with Sam Petreski on a new approach to forensic methodology, which I feel is really interesting.  I haven't presented at Defcon or Shmoocon in a couple of years, although I have good stuff that I am working on.  FOLLOW-THRU!

It gets away from the classic framework methodologies like:
Classic DOJ PEIA
Classic B Carrier
Fantastic whitepaper comparing methodologies
(Unfortunatley all PDF's so be careful with your patches)

But instead focuses on the analysis phases of the forensic specialist, from the initial information gathering to preparing to develop the report - i.e. when the "man" sits in front of the forensic PC loaded with tools and the images to examine.

Here is the abstract which helps develop the methodology.

A new approach to Forensic Methodology and !!BUSTED!! case studies.

Imagine the following experiment, a unique case is given to three digital forensic analysts and each is given the opportunity to engage the requester in order to develop the information needed to process the case.  Based on the information gathered, each of the three analysts is asked to provide an estimate to complete the investigation and can proceed with up to 20 hours to process the case.  The analysts are then measured based on the total findings, the time required to process the case, the initial information gathered, and the estimated time to process the case.  The expected result is to be varied based on experience and individual characteristics, such as organization, discipline, and the attention to detail of each analyst.  Imagine this same experiment but with only 8 hours to process the case, because that is the way it happens in real life.

David Smith and Samuel Petreski have developed a methodology that fits within the Analysis phase in one of the standard Digital Forensic Analysis Methodologies - PEIA (Preparation, Extraction, Identification, and Analysis), to provide a structure for consistent results, better development of the requested goals, increase efficiency in fulfilling the goals, and develop an improved estimate of the time required to complete the request.

This methodology involves the generation and validation of case goals, the evaluation of methods used to achieve the goals, a structure for estimating the effectiveness, time required, processing results of specific methods, and generalized organization and time management.  The primary goal of this methodology is to address the structure and optimal path that would allow a digital forensic examiner to perform an examination with a high level of efficiency and consistent results.

This presentation provides an introduction to this methodology and applies its key concepts to real sanitized digital investigations, such as tracking down a suspected executive's adult craigslist ad, performing an analysis on a compromised system involving social security numbers, and making the determination of intellectual property theft.

Interested in more?  Here are some books Amazon recommends - don't worry, I won't put a book out that I haven't read and think is worth it.

Don't ever get called into a deposition or court without reading this book!  It is the bomb-bay and after understanding the concepts, it will be you go-to-book when you have a follow-up.










Uh, yea.  Another must read.  I have it on my kindle now for quick(er) reference as well.  I seem to absorb more each time I read it and really like the 2nd edition.

How can you not love Bruce Schneier's CryptoGram?

I am not sure if you are getting this newsletter, but always a thrill-a-minute.  I can't say I go with him on all of his positions, but always thought provoking and well thought out.

http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-1004.html - link.

Great this month is his analysis on the story of "Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg declared the age of privacy to be over".  Yes, I am pretty tired of hearing "users are idiots", so it was refreshing to have a position article on that the moneymakers of the world are working really easy for you to lose your privacy.

Perl script for renaming music files

Ok, I used one of the free ipod backup programs and it copied all of the file with native format, e.g. UBOT.m4a - great, now I have to write a perl program to read the metadata and rename the files.

Quick and dirty, but here you go:

 #!/usr/local/bin/perl
use MP4::Info;
use MP3::Info;

MP3s();
MP4s();


sub stripUnwanted
{
my $filename=shift;
    $filename =~ tr{\\\/}{-};
    $filename =~ tr{*?}{X};
    $filename =~ tr{“><[]|:;,’=\"}{_};
return $filename;
}

sub MP3s {
@files = <*.mp3>;

    foreach $file (@files) {  
        my $tag  = get_mp3tag($file);
        $artist = $tag->{ARTIST};
        $title = $tag->{TITLE};
  
        $artist = stripUnwanted($artist);
        $title = stripUnwanted($title);
  
        print "Artist: $artist - Title: $title\n";
        rename ($file, "$artist-$title.mp3");
    }  
}

sub MP4s {
@files = <*.m4*>;
  
    foreach $file (@files) {  
        my $mp4 = new MP4::Info $file;
        $artist = $mp4->artist;
        $title = $mp4->title;
  
        $artist = stripUnwanted($artist);
        $title = stripUnwanted($title);
  
        print "$artist - $title\n";
  
        rename ($file, "$artist-$title.m4a");
  
    }
}

Back on track - working on lots of projects..

I'm back and have lots of good info to share.  I am working on my Defcon presentation and better password dictionary development.

That's it for now, but good stuff coming.

Been a while...

But I really need to stay on top of stuff. A lot has happened that I did not blog out!

I spoke at Shmoocon about my forensic memory analysis for passwords. Yep, what you think - I develop passwords out of the billions of possible strings on your forensic image. It was pretty cool and the presentation is posted on the shmoo site.

I got an idea from one of my mailing lists to go a bit deeper on. Detecting time travel in the non-Time Cop way. I am going to write a paper on detecting document alterations with changing of system time clocks.

I know the forensic perception - a cat and mouse game where bad guy can make a change, good guy develops a way to detect the change, so bad guy makes a change a different way. On and on, with the doubt of detection on the good guy, because maybe he just has not developed a way to detect the latest change.

That's my next project, feel free to steal the idea and run with it - just give me a copy of the results!

DC3 Challenge

Finally getting somewhere with the 2007 DC3 Challenge. Lots of damaged media and with my Defcon15 presentation - I gave away lots of tips for challenges 1,3,4,5.

I have also made much more progress with my string extaction. I found out that other systems do some levels of string extract, I like mine because I rank the strings based on entropy and password class.