From the Back Cover
Praise for Windows Forensics and Incident Recovery
“Windows Forensics and Incident Recovery doesn’t just discuss forensics, it also includes tools for analysis and shows readers how to use them. I look forward to putting these tools through their paces, and I recommend Carvey’s book as a terrific addition to the security professional’s bookshelf.”
—Warren G. Kruse II, Partner
Computer Forensic Services, LLC
“This book is a good reference for the tools needed to prepare for, respond to, and confirm a Windows-based computer incident.”
—Brian Carrier
Digital forensics researcher
“This book provides a unique ‘command-line centric’ view of Microsoft and non-Microsoft tools that can be very helpful to folks responsible for security and system administration on the Windows platform.”
—Vishwas Lele, principal architect
Applied Information Sciences, Inc.
“Harlan Carvey’s book serves as a great resource for investigators and systems administrators looking to peek under the hoods of their Windows systems.”
—Jason Chan, security consultant
@stake
“Regardless of what you know already, you are guaranteed to learn something new about Windows incident response from this book.”
—Brian Behler, computer forensics and intrusion analyst/engineer
“Harlan Carvey’s vast security and forensics experience shows through in all facets of this work. Many books have attempted to be the prescriptive guide to forensics on the Windows platform. This book not only attempts it, but it succeeds—with guidance to spare.”
—Rick Kingslan, Microsoft MVP
West Corporation
“This book is the first to bring together into a single volume the topics of malicious code, incident response, and forensics on the Windows platform. Mr. Carvey’s work should serve as a valuable reference for any Windows system administrator or security professional.”
—Jennifer Kolde, information security consultant, author, and instructor
“Harlan Carvey’s book is a one-of-a-kind approach to do-it-yourself Windows forensics. With detailed and illustrative examples coupled with Harlan’s renowned Perl scripts, this book certainly is a great find.”
—Mark Burnett, security consultant and author
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The first book to focus on forensics and incident recovery in a Windows environment
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Teaches through case studies and real world-examples
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Companion CD contains unique tools developed by the author.
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Covers Windows Server 2003, Windows 2000, Windows NT, and Windows XP
If you’re responsible for protecting Windows systems, firewalls and anti-virus aren’t enough. You also need to master incident response, recovery, and auditing. Leading Windows security expert and instructor Harlan Carvey offers a start-to-finish guide to the subject: everything administrators must know to recognize and respond to virtually any attack.
Drawing on his widely acclaimed course, Carvey uses real-world examples to cover every significant incident response, recovery, and forensics technique. He delivers a complete incident response toolset that combines today’s best open source and freeware tools, his own exclusive software and scripts, and step-by-step instructions for using them. This book’s tools and techniques apply to every current and professional version of Windows: NT, 2000, XP, and Windows Server 2003. Coverage includes:
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Developing a practical methodology for responding to potential attacks
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Preparing your systems to prevent and detect incidents
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Recognizing the signatures of an attack—in time to act
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Uncovering attacks that evade detection by Event Viewer, Task Manager, and other Windows GUI tools
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Using the Forensic Server Project to automate data collection during live investigations
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Analyzing live forensics data in order to determine what occurred
CD-ROM INCLUDED
CD-ROM contains incident response and forensics toolkit code developed by the author, sample network packet captures, as well as data collected from compromised systems using the Forensic Server Project. You can also access Carvey’s website at http://www.windows-ir.com for code samples, updates, and errata.
Acknowledgments
I’d like to start by thanking Larry Leibrock and Jay Heiser for getting me started down this road. Several years ago, I had developed a 2-day, hands-on incident response course for Windows 2000, and Larry provided me with my initial opportunity to teach it at the University of Texas in Austin. This book began its life as the presentation for the incident response course. I had done a technical review of Jay and Warren Kruse’s computer forensics book, and Jay provided my name to his former editor as someone who may be interested in writing a book on the subject of Windows security.
Karen Gettman offered me the opportunity to write this book, and I decided to take it. I’d had articles published, but I’d never written a book. Karen and her assistant, Elizabeth Zdunich, kept me on track throughout this process.
I’d like to thank several of the reviewers as well. Of all of the reviewers who’ve been involved in this process, I’d like to recognize Jennifer Kolde, Mike Lyman, and Jason Chan for their efforts and input. The reviews from these three individuals provided valuable constructive criticism regarding the content and structure of the book. I can’t say that I followed all the advice they provided, but I did read and consider everything they said thoroughly. With their help and insight, I didn’t feel as if I were working on this book alone. Thanks, guys, for your time and effort. And Jen, thanks for indulging me all those time I’d email you with thoughts about your comments. Those exchanges gave me even more insight into to the content of the book, as well as the subject of incident response on Windows systems, in general.
Finally, and most importantly, I’d like to thank Terri Dougherty. I’ve written a book, and yet I can’t seem to find the words to express my gratitude for your support throughout this process. Thank you. I owe you a debt that I will be repaying for a long time.
© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.
About the Author
Harlan Carvey’s interest in computer and information security began while he was an officer in the U.S. military, during which time he earned his master’s degree in Electrical Engineering. After leaving military service, he began working in the field of commercial and government information security consulting, performing vulnerability assessments and penetration tests. While employed at one company, he was the sole developer of a program for collecting security-specific information (i.e., Registry entries, file information, configuration settings, etc.) from Windows NT systems during vulnerability assessments. The purpose of the product was to overcome shortfalls in commercial scanning products and provide more valuable information to the customer. Harlan has also done considerable work in the area of incident response and forensics, performing internal and external investigations. He has also written a number of proof-of- concept tools for educating users in such topics as Windows null sessions, file signature analysis, and the retrieval of metadata from a variety of files.
Harlan’s experience with computers began in the early ’80s, with a Timex-Sinclair 1000. Around that time, he was learning to program BASIC on an Apple IIe. From there, he moved on to computers such as the Epson QX-10 and the TRS-80, on which he programmed BASIC learned PASCAL, using the TurboPASCAL compiler. Since then, he’s worked with SunOS and Solaris systems, as well as various versions of DOS and Windows, OS/2, and Linux.
Harlan has presented at Usenix, DefCon9, Black Hat, GMU2003 on various topics specific to issues on Windows platforms, such as data hiding. He has had articles published in the Information Security Bulletin and on the SecurityFocus web site.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Preface
As long as networks of Microsoft Windows systems aremanaged, administered, and used by people, security incidents will occur.Regardless of whether weÕre talking about hundreds of corporate Windowsworkstations and servers or home user systems running Windows XP on broadbandconnections to the Internet, Windows systems will be attacked, compromised, andused for malicious purposes. This is not to say that only Windows systems willbe attacked; rather, Windows systems are highly pervasive throughout the entirecomputing infrastructure, from home and school systems to high-end e-commercesites. In contrast to this pervasiveness, information regarding conductingeffective incident response and forensic audit activities on Windows systems islimited, to say the least. Attacks may come from insiders who have legitimatephysical access to systems and are authorized to use them or from facelessindividuals hiding in the shapeless ether of the Internet. Knowing this, anyonewho manages or administers Windows systems (including the home user) needs toknow how to react when he suspects that an incident has occurred.
When it comes to investigating and resolving computer securityincidents, Windows systems lag well behind Linux and *nix systems. This gapcan be attributed to a variety of reasons. One reason is a lack of detailedtechnical knowledge regarding Windows systems themselves on the part ofadministrators. This lack of understanding may be due at least in part toMicrosoftÕs use of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) to control everything fromthe installation process to all aspects of system administration. Attackers andmalicious users take steps to ensure that their activities remain hidden fromview, particularly from the systemÕs GUI tools such as the Event Viewer and theTask Manager. For example, enabling an audit policy requires that the systemadministrator navigate through multiple layers of the GUI, while an attackercan easily disable (and then reenable, if necessary) that audit policy with asingle command line tool (which, incidentally, is provided for free fromMicrosoft).
Other reasons for the “incident response gap” include a lack ofunderstanding regarding how to use available native and third-party tools toretrieve data and how to interpret the data that is collected from potentiallyinfected or compromised systems. Many useful and powerful tools that mirror thefunctionality used on Linux systems are not available through either theMicrosoft operating system distributions or the Resource Kits. Sites that makethese tools available are scattered across the Internet, with no centrallocation cataloguing them. This book was written to aid anyone investigatingincidents that occur on Windows systems by providing information regarding thetools and techniques used to respond to incidents and conduct forensic audits.
This book arose out of a need that I, and I am sure others, haveseen in the Microsoft Windows system administration community. MicrosoftÕsnetwork operating systems, beginning with Windows NT, are designed to be easyto use and manage. These systems come with some very powerful tools. As usefulas these tools are to the administrator, they are also very useful to anattacker or to a malicious user. Most system administrators and owners spendtheir time dealing with Windows operating systems through the GUI, and in doingso, miss many of the important aspects of the operating system that go on”under the hood.” For example, the Task Manager does not show the complete pathto the executable image for each process, nor does it display the command lineused to launch each process. This information is available using third-partytools, which most folks who work with Windows systems may not be familiar with.Therefore, it may be relatively simple to hide an errant process, such as anetwork backdoor, by renaming the file “svchost.exe” or something similarlyinnocuous.
Several years ago, I developed a hands-on course for teachingsystem administrators how to respond to security incidents on Windows 2000systems. While teaching the course to system administrators at variousorganizations, I saw the same things that I saw on listservs and on forums onthe Internet. During the first break on the first day of the course, I would goaround the room and “infect” all of the systems with a “Trojan.” This “Trojan”was netcat, renamed to “inetinfo.exe,” listening on port 80. When the attendeesreturned to the room, IÕd tell them that I “infected” their systems andchallenged them to find it. The purpose of this exercise was not to find outwho could find the “Trojan” first but to look at the steps that the attendeeswould go through in their incident response activities, to look at their”methodology.” Invariably, every attendee would examine the contents of theEvent Log, comb through the Task Manager, and maybe run netstat Ðan from acommand prompt. All of the systems were connected to the Internet, and the onlyinstructions I would give to…
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