Top 5 Most Popular and Best Cyber Forensics Tools
The art of Cyber forensic investigation is quite
complex and requires rigorous precision in following every investigative step
from Acquisition to Analysis & Reporting. Experts now face the need for
dependable tools that help them to do so, from the beginning. Every
investigation requires usage of multiple tools, dependence on a sole tool
causes the investigation to lose its flexibility and makes it prone towards
ambiguity.
Cyber forensic: As the title says, it is collecting evidence for
investigation after an unwanted activity has occurred. Cyber/Computer Forensics
is a department that comes under Digital Forensic Science for
improving cyber security
Here
are top 5 cyber forensic tools preferred by specialists and investigators
around the world.
So what
are the tools used by these professionals? Here’s a list of top 5 tools
used with a brief description and key features.
#1)Pro Discover Forensic
Pro Discover Forensics is a powerful computer security tool that
enables computer professionals to find all the data on a computer disk while
protecting evidence and creating evidentiary quality reports for use in
legal proceedings.
ProDiscover
Forensic is that Computer/Cybersecurity
tool which can enable the professionals to locate all the data from a
particular computer storage disk and also simultaneously protects the evidence
and creates the documentation report used for legal orders.
Hardware
Protection for the data in any system or organization is a very important thing
and also equally tough for anyone to break through it. ProDiscover Forensic
reads the disk at the sector level and hence you can say that no data can be
hidden from this tool.
This
tool has the ability to recover any deleted files from the victim system and
examine the slack space. It can access Windows Alternate Data Streams and
allows you to have a preview and search or capture the process (i.e. take a
screenshot or any other means) of the Hardware Protected Area (HPA).
ProDiscover Forensic uses its own technology to conduct this exercise.
Key Features Of ProDiscover
Forensic Would Be
1.
Search
files or an entire disk, including slack space, HPA section, and Windows
NT/2000/XP Alternate Data Streams for complete disk forensic analysis.
2.
Examine
and cross-reference data at the file or cluster level to ensure nothing is
hidden, even in slack space.
3.
Utilize
Perl scripts to automate investigation tasks.
4.
Preview
all files, even if hidden or deleted, without altering data on disk, including
file Metadata.
5.
Create
a Bit-Stream copy of the disk to be analyzed, including hidden HPA section
(patent pending), to keep original evidence safe.
#2)Sleuth
Kit (+Autopsy)
The Sleuth Kit
(+Autopsy) A Command Line Interface Is A
Mode Of Interacting With A Computer Program. Here The Users/Clients Issue
Commands To The Program Successive Lines Of Text Known As Commands In A
Programming Language.
Similarly Sleuth Kit Is A
Collection Of Such Command Line Interfaces/Tools. It Allows The User To Examine
The Disk Images Os The Victim Device And Recover The Damaged Files. It Is
Generally Used In Autopsy Along With Many Other Open Source Or Commercial
Forensic Tools.
Autopsy Feature List
1.
LNK File
Analysis: Identifies shortcuts and accessed documents
2.
Email
Analysis: Parses MBOX format messages, such as Thunderbird.
3.
EXIF: Extracts
geolocation and camera information from JPEG files.
4.
File Type
Sorting: Group files by their type to find all images or documents.
5.
Media
Playback: View videos and images in the application and not require an
external viewer.
6.
Multi-User
Cases: Collaborate with fellow examiners on larger cases.
7.
Timeline
Analysis: Displays system events in a graphical interface to help identify
activity.
8.
Keyword
Search: Text extraction and index searched modules enable you to find
files that mention specific terms and find regular expression patterns.
9.
Web
Artifacts: Extracts web activity from common browsers to help identify
user activity.
WhatsApp Starts Testing 'Suspicious Link Detection' Feature to Limit Spam Circulation: Report
#3) X-Ways Forensics
X-Ways
Forensics is an advanced platform for digital forensics
examiners. It runs on all available version of Windows. One of the
problems faced by the professional while using any Forensic toolkit is that
they are resource-hungry, slow, incapable of reaching all nook and corners.
Whereas X-Ways Forensics is not resource-hungry, faster, finds all the deleted
files and comes with additional features. This forensic tool is user-friendly
and fully-portable and can be carried on a USB stick. It doesn’t require any
extra installation on Windows systems.
Key features of X-ray
forensic include
1.
Complete access to
disks, RAIDs, and images more than 2 TB in size
2.
Automatic identification
of lost/deleted partitions
3.
Viewing and editing
binary data structures using templates
4.
Recursive view of all
existing and deleted files in all sub directories
5.
Disk cloning and imaging
6.
Ability to read
partitioning and file system structures inside raw (.dd) image files, ISO, VHD
and VMDK images
#4)SIFT- SANS Investigative Forensic Toolkit
SIFT has the ability to examine raw disks
(i.e. the data in byte level secured directly from the hard disk drive or any
other storage devices), multiple file systems and evidence formats. It is
basically based on Ubuntu and is a Live CD including the tools one needs to
conduct an in-depth forensic investigation or response investigation. The best
thing about the SIFT toolkit is that it’s Free and Open Source.
SIFT can match any
modern day incident-response and forensic tool suite which is also featured in
SANS Advanced Incident Response course. So what sort of evidence formats does
SIFT support? It supports anything ranging from Advanced Forensic Format (AFF)
to RAW (dd) evidence formats and even more.
Key Features Of SIFT
Would Be
1.
Ubuntu LTS 14.04 Base.
2.
64-bit base system.
3.
Better memory
utilization.
4.
Auto-DFIR package update
and customizations.
5.
Latest forensic tools
and techniques.
6.
VMware Appliance ready
to tackle forensics.
7.
Cross compatibility
between Linux and Windows.
8.
Option to install
stand-alone via (.iso) or use via VMware Player/Workstation.
9.
Online Documentation
Project at ReadTheDocs
#5)
CAINE (Computer Aided Investigative Environment)
Caine is
built upon a Linux environment. It is actually a live CD containing a number of
forensic tools required for. Since the latest version of CAINE is built on the
Ubuntu Linux LTS, MATE, and LightDM, anybody who is familiar with these need
not put in extra effort to work on CAINE.
Key
Features Of Caine Include
1.
Caine Interface – a user-friendly interface that brings
together some well-known forensic tools, many of which are open source.
2.
Updated and optimized environment to conduct a forensic analysis.
3.
Semi-automatic report generator.
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