Book Image

Computer Forensics with FTK

By : Fernando Carbone
Book Image

Computer Forensics with FTK

By: Fernando Carbone

Overview of this book

<p>With the increase of electronic crimes and the need to constantly audit the proper use of resources, companies need qualified professionals and appropriate tools to carry out these activities. The FTK platform, with the ability to collect and analyze digital evidence quickly and with integrity, is a great solution to help professionals achieve these goals. It is extremely useful for conducting digital investigations, helping you conduct a thorough investigation through a single tool and ensure the integrity of evidence. It is hard to find technical information on this tool and that’s where this book will come in handy, helping professionals perform their activities with greater excellence.</p> <p>This tutorial leads by example, providing you with everything you need to use FTK and the tools included such as FTK Imager, Registry View, and PRTK in order to enhance your Computer Forensics knowledge in an easier and more efficient way.</p> <p>You will be introduced to the background of Computer Forensics, which include the types of digital devices that can be acquired and how to prepare for a new case of investigation. You will become acquainted with the FTK architecture and learn how to leverage its features in order to help you find the evidence as fast as possible. Through this book, you will also learn the memory forensics technique using the memory dump feature of FTK Imager. Furthermore, you will learn how to extract some important information such as process and DLL information, Sockets, and Driver List Open Handles.</p> <p>To conclude your tutorial, you will learn how to extract information from Windows Registry and how to recover passwords from the system and files. You will find this book an invaluable supplement to teach you all the steps required for the completion of investigations on digital media and to generate consistent and irrefutable evidence in court.</p>
Table of Contents (14 chapters)
Computer Forensics with FTK
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.packtpub.com
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Getting Started with Computer Forensics Using FTK
Index

Downloading FTK


Once the FTK platform has been acquired, AccessData usually sends the DVDs for product installation and the hardware dongle codemeter with the license of the product.

If not, then it is possible to download the FTK directly from the AccessData website. All other products are also available for download.

In this book, we will use FTK Version 5 onwards, and you can download the product from http://www.accessdata.com/support/product-downloads.

Prerequisites for FTK

There are two different settings (configuration options) for FTK installation:

  • One machine: FTK + database

  • Two machines: FTK + database on separate machines

In general, the specification used for FTK with the PostgreSQL database is shown in the following screenshot:

Tip

Note that this is the recommended specification by the vendor. However, the more the processing, memory, and I/O resources available, the faster the analysis.

Installing FTK and the database

FTK installation is quite simple, although the components' installation sequence must be respected. AccessData has created a menu to provide support for the correct installation, as can be seen in the following screenshot:

Perform the following steps for installing FTK:

  1. Start the installation process by using the Database component. You can then enter a password to create the PostgreSQL database admin user.

  2. Once the database installation is done, install FTK.

  3. Install the Distributed Engine component, as it is necessary for the correct operation of FTK.

  4. The View User Guide installation is optional, but highly recommended.

  5. To finish the FTK platform installation process, click on the Other Products button and select the components listed as follows:

    • License Manager: This is the product's license control component

    • Registry Viewer: This is the Windows registry analysis component

    • PRTK: This is the password recovery component

    • CodeMeter: This is the USB CodeMeter hardware driver and management component

    • Imager: This is the FTK Imager product

Tip

Make sure that you select the correct platform, which can be either 32- or 64-bits, and in case the Unable to connect to the database requested error message appears, just change the RDBMS option to PostgresSQL.

Running FTK for the first time

If the installation has been done correctly, the first step would be to create a user:

Next, you can complete the fields in the form and then click on OK to create the first user. This user will be the application administrator, who will manage the FTK tool. The use of the FTK tool will be discussed in the next few chapters.