Computer Forensics and Incident Response

Overview

Do you know what to do if your organisation's security is compromised? Threats of computer crime against an organisation's infrastructure have grown substantially, but there are steps you can take. In this course, you apply the latest Windows-based computer forensic techniques to uncover illicit activity and recover lost data. Every crime leaves behind clues. With the right tools, you can effectively respond to and counteract security threats.

This training may be available onsite; please contact us if you are interested.

Audience

Systems administrators and those involved in responding to security incidents. Knowledge of Windows-based PCs, including hardware and operating system software, at the level of Course 950, "Windows Vista Comprehensive Introduction", is assumed.

Skills Gained

You will learn to:

• Implement a computer forensics incident-response strategy
• Lead a successful investigation from the initial response to completion
• Conduct disk-based analysis and recover deleted files
• Identify information-hiding techniques
• Reconstruct user activity from e-mail, temporary Internet files and cached data
• Assess the integrity of system memory and process architecture to reveal malicious code

Course Outline

Introduction to Computer Forensics

• Responding to incidents
• Applying forensic analysis skills
• Distinguishing between unpermitted corporate and criminal activity

Handling Preliminary Investigations

Planning for incident response

• Communicating with site personnel
• Knowing your organisation's policies
• Minimising impact on your organisation

Identifying the incident life cycle

• Performing incident analysis
• Restoring systems
• Capturing volatile information

Controlling an Investigation

Collecting digital evidence

• Chain of custody and process integrity
• Advantages of the forensics analysis team

Legal aspects of acquiring evidence

• Securing and documenting the scene
• Processing and logging evidence

Conducting Disk-Based Analysis

Forensics lab operations

• Acquiring a bit-stream image
• Enabling a write blocker
• Establishing a baseline
• Physically protecting the media

Disk structure and recovery techniques

• Disk geometry components
• Inspecting Windows file system architectures
• Locating and restoring deleted content

Investigating Information-Hiding Techniques

Uncovering hidden information

• Scanning and evaluating alternate data streams
• Executing code from a stream
• Steganography tools and concepts
• Detecting steganography
• Scavenging slack space

Inspecting header signatures and file mangling

• Combining files
• Binding multiple executable files
• File time analysis

Scrutinising E-mail

Investigating the mail client

• Interpreting e-mail headers
• Recovering deleted e-mails

Validating e-mail header information

• Detecting spoofed e-mail
• Verifying e-mail routing

Tracing Internet Access

Inspecting browser cache and history files

• Exploring temporary Internet files
• Researching cookie storage
• Reconstructing cleared browser history

Auditing Internet surfing

• Tracking user activity
• Uncovering unauthorised usage

Searching Memory in Real Time

Comparing the architecture of processes

• Identifying user and kernel memory
• Inspecting threads
• Discovering rogue DLLs and drivers

Employing advanced process analysis methods

• Evaluating processes with Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)
• Walking dependency trees

Auditing processes and services

• Investigating the process table
• Discovering evidence in the Registry
• Deploying and detecting a root kit

Implementing covert surveillance techniques

• Logging key strokes
• Observing real-time remote desktops
• Monitoring Internet access