1. technology and computing
2. hardware
3. computer components
4. memory
5. portable

DIGITAL FORENSICS AND
THE MOST FAMOUS EGG
How did Humpty Dumpty fall?
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again
Mike Lombardi, MBA, CISSP, GCFE, GCIH Vertigrate © 2015 www.vertigrate.com
REASONS FOR HUMPTY’S
FALL
 He was pushed
 He jumped
 He was inebriated
 The wall was structurally unsound
 He faked his own demise
Mike Lombardi, MBA, CISSP, GCFE, GCIH Vertigrate © 2015 www.vertigrate.com
AGENDA
 Chain of Custody
 Data Sources & Imaging
 Data Types
 Types of Cases
 What to Look For in Forensic Provider
Mike Lombardi, MBA, CISSP, GCFE, GCIH Vertigrate © 2015 www.vertigrate.com
CHAIN OF CUSTODY
 Doesn’t have to be complicated
 Document the following:
• Device Characteristics: Make, Model, Serial, Time Zone, State of
Device
• Date & Time
• Custodian
• Method of Transfer
• File hash
• Any actions performed on the device
Mike Lombardi, MBA, CISSP, GCFE, GCIH Vertigrate © 2015 www.vertigrate.com
DATA SOURCES
 Memory
 Hard Drives
• Rotational v. SSD
• RAID
• Encryption
 Mobile
 Removable Media
 Cloud
Mike Lombardi, MBA, CISSP, GCFE, GCIH Vertigrate © 2015 www.vertigrate.com
MEMORY
 What was going through Humpty’s mind?
Mike Lombardi, MBA, CISSP, GCFE, GCIH Vertigrate © 2015 www.vertigrate.com
HARD DRIVES
 What was Humpty doing leading up to his death?
Mike Lombardi, MBA, CISSP, GCFE, GCIH Vertigrate © 2015 www.vertigrate.com
MOBILE
 What did Humpty do while away from his computer?
Mike Lombardi, MBA, CISSP, GCFE, GCIH Vertigrate © 2015 www.vertigrate.com
REMOVABLE MEDIA
 What else did Humpty save data to?
Mike Lombardi, MBA, CISSP, GCFE, GCIH Vertigrate © 2015 www.vertigrate.com
CLOUD
 Which cloud services did Humpty use?
Mike Lombardi, MBA, CISSP, GCFE, GCIH Vertigrate © 2015 www.vertigrate.com
WHAT DO WE KNOW?
 Largest egg producer
 We don’t have RAM
 We have his computer
 No encryption or RAID
 Always carried his smartphone
 Used a tablet at home and on the road
 Never seen using removable media
 Might have had cloud accounts
Mike Lombardi, MBA, CISSP, GCFE, GCIH Vertigrate © 2015 www.vertigrate.com
DATA TYPES
 Actual Files
 Deleted Files
 Email
 Operating System Files
Mike Lombardi, MBA, CISSP, GCFE, GCIH Vertigrate © 2015 www.vertigrate.com
ACTUAL FILES
 DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, PDF, JPG
• Content
• Metadata
•
•
File System
File
 LNK
• Metadata
• CLUE: Keyword search for “poached”
turns up 2 hits.
Mike Lombardi, MBA, CISSP, GCFE, GCIH Vertigrate © 2015 www.vertigrate.com
DELETED FILES
 Can be found anywhere
 Due to both user and system activity
 Mass deletions in short timeframe = RED FLAG
 Greater chance of recovery IF
• Less time from file deletion
• Less activity on the disk
 CLUE: Found deleted JPG.
Mike Lombardi, MBA, CISSP, GCFE, GCIH Vertigrate © 2015 www.vertigrate.com
RECOVERED PHOTO
Mike Lombardi, MBA, CISSP, GCFE, GCIH Vertigrate © 2015 www.vertigrate.com
EMAIL FILES
 Outlook
 Lotus Notes
 Windows Mail
 Mozilla Thunderbird
 Webmail
• CLUE: No email files, but webmail
URL’s found in Internet History.
Mike Lombardi, MBA, CISSP, GCFE, GCIH Vertigrate © 2015 www.vertigrate.com
WINDOWS OPERATING
SYSTEM FILES
 Registry
 Event Logs
 Browser
 LNK
 Prefetch
 MFT and USN Journal
Mike Lombardi, MBA, CISSP, GCFE, GCIH Vertigrate © 2015 www.vertigrate.com
REGISTRY ANALYSIS
 C:\Windows\System32\Config
 C:\Users\<user_name>\NTUSER.dat
 MRU & Jump Lists
 Shellbags
 USB History
• CLUE: New USB drive plugged in 7 days
prior to Humpty’s death. Last plugged into
the PC the morning of Humpty’s death. 2nd
USB drive plugged in same day.
Mike Lombardi, MBA, CISSP, GCFE, GCIH Vertigrate © 2015 www.vertigrate.com
BROWSER ARTIFACTS
 Depends upon the browser
 IE, Firefox and Chrome
 All very different & rapidly changing
 Index.dat, SQLite, JSON
 CLUE: Carve for webmail content, but no meaningful fragments,
BUT we find a new email address and domain that looks interesting.
Mike Lombardi, MBA, CISSP, GCFE, GCIH Vertigrate © 2015 www.vertigrate.com
MOBILE ARTIFACTS
 Device Encryption & Passcodes
 Volatile Data
 ~2M app’s between Android & iPhone
 Most rely on plist or SQLite structure
 Common ones are handled by mobile forensics suites
• CLUE: Words With Friends has a chat
feature.
Mike Lombardi, MBA, CISSP, GCFE, GCIH Vertigrate © 2015 www.vertigrate.com
REMOVABLE MEDIA
 Write-block it
 Physical image best, unless encrypted
 PC
USB
 PC
USB
• CLUE: Term sheet between Humpty
Dumpty Eggs and Chicken Little
Enterprises found.
Mike Lombardi, MBA, CISSP, GCFE, GCIH Vertigrate © 2015 www.vertigrate.com
WHAT DO WE KNOW?
 Pam’s recipe for Eggs Benedict from the Internet saved to the desktop.
 Deleted JPG originating from Humpty’s phone puts him at Chicken Little’s
house when the thumb drive is inserted.
 Internet history reveals new email address. Subpoena shows communication
with the baker about expansion plan.
 Words With Friends shows chat log with “Ace”
 1st USB drive contains term sheet between Humpty Dumpty Eggs and Chicken
Little Enterprises
 2nd USB drive is unknown
Mike Lombardi, MBA, CISSP, GCFE, GCIH Vertigrate © 2015 www.vertigrate.com
HD & CL HATCH A PLAN TO
CORNER THE EGG MARKET
 Humpty Dumpty and Chicken Little conspire to establish an egg cartel
and expand.
 Part of the egg-spansion is into other food goods, like hollandaise.
 Humpty pretexts the baker with a phony email address to get his
recipe.
(Turns out it’s really PAM’s)
 Baker finds out about Humpty’s plans.
 Baker pushes Humpty and copies the recipe.
• Butcher & Candlestick maker both have alibies.
Mike Lombardi, MBA, CISSP, GCFE, GCIH Vertigrate © 2015 www.vertigrate.com
PUSH BUTTON FORENSICS
 Know what you’re getting from the analyst
 Be sure that you’re forensics analyst knows their tools
 Don’t accept reports that don’t include context and analysis
 Ensure that multiple data sources are being analyzed together and
data is correlated
Mike Lombardi, MBA, CISSP, GCFE, GCIH Vertigrate © 2015 www.vertigrate.com
FORENSIC ANALYSIS
QUESTIONS?
Mike Lombardi, MBA, CISSP, GCFE, GCIH
Vertigrate
Mike Lombardi, MBA, CISSP, GCFE, GCIH Vertigrate © 2015 www.vertigrate.com