Book Image

Cloud Forensics Demystified

By : Ganesh Ramakrishnan, Mansoor Haqanee
Book Image

Cloud Forensics Demystified

By: Ganesh Ramakrishnan, Mansoor Haqanee

Overview of this book

As organizations embrace cloud-centric environments, it becomes imperative for security professionals to master the skills of effective cloud investigation. Cloud Forensics Demystified addresses this pressing need, explaining how to use cloud-native tools and logs together with traditional digital forensic techniques for a thorough cloud investigation. The book begins by giving you an overview of cloud services, followed by a detailed exploration of the tools and techniques used to investigate popular cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Progressing through the chapters, you’ll learn how to investigate Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and containerized environments such as Kubernetes. Throughout, the chapters emphasize the significance of the cloud, explaining which tools and logs need to be enabled for investigative purposes and demonstrating how to integrate them with traditional digital forensic tools and techniques to respond to cloud security incidents. By the end of this book, you’ll be well-equipped to handle security breaches in cloud-based environments and have a comprehensive understanding of the essential cloud-based logs vital to your investigations. This knowledge will enable you to swiftly acquire and scrutinize artifacts of interest in cloud security incidents.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Part 1: Cloud Fundamentals
6
Part 2: Forensic Readiness: Tools, Techniques, and Preparation for Cloud Forensics
10
Part 3: Cloud Forensic Analysis – Responding to an Incident in the Cloud

Microsoft 365 incident response

After the initial scoping to understand the incident, the next step is to determine indicators of compromise and begin the threat hunt. This section delves into the tools and techniques that incident responders can employ to automate the log acquisition and analysis process, specifically to an organization that is utilizing Microsoft 365 as their cloud productivity suite. A key focus is on utilizing Microsoft 365’s built-in security and compliance tools, such as Microsoft Purview, to rapidly gather logs and track suspicious activities.

Tooling

In Chapter 7, we discussed the various auditing and compliance features in Microsoft 365, one of which was Microsoft unified audit logs. These logs provide a consolidated view of all Microsoft 365 activity and are critical for investigating and understanding the extent of the compromise. Here’s how incident responders can leverage the audit log search GUI in Microsoft 365 for this purpose:

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