Book Image

Digital Forensics with Kali Linux - Second Edition

By : Shiva V. N. Parasram
Book Image

Digital Forensics with Kali Linux - Second Edition

By: Shiva V. N. Parasram

Overview of this book

Kali Linux is a Linux-based distribution that's widely used for penetration testing and digital forensics. It has a wide range of tools to help for digital forensics investigations and incident response mechanisms. This updated second edition of Digital Forensics with Kali Linux covers the latest version of Kali Linux and The Sleuth Kit. You'll get to grips with modern techniques for analysis, extraction, and reporting using advanced tools such as FTK Imager, hex editor, and Axiom. Updated to cover digital forensics basics and advancements in the world of modern forensics, this book will also delve into the domain of operating systems. Progressing through the chapters, you'll explore various formats for file storage, including secret hiding places unseen by the end user or even the operating system. The book will also show you how to create forensic images of data and maintain integrity using hashing tools. Finally, you'll cover advanced topics such as autopsies and acquiring investigation data from networks, operating system memory, and quantum cryptography. By the end of this book, you'll have gained hands-on experience of implementing all the pillars of digital forensics: acquisition, extraction, analysis, and presentation, all using Kali Linux tools.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
1
Section 1: Kali Linux – Not Just for Penetration Testing
4
Section 2: Forensic Fundamentals and Best Practices
7
Section 3: Forensic Tools in Kali Linux
12
Section 4: Automated Digital Forensic Suites
16
Other Books You May Enjoy

Data imaging and hashing

Imaging refers to the exact copying of data either as a file, folder, partition, or entire storage media or drive. When doing a regular copy of files and folders, not all files may be copied due to their attributes being set to the system or even hidden. To prevent files from being left out, we perform a special type of copy where every bit is copied or imaged exactly as it is on the current medium as if taking a picture or snapshot of the data.

Creating a copy of each bit of data exactly is referred to as creating a physical image. Performing a bit-stream copy ensures the integrity of the copy. To further prove this, a hash of the original evidence and the physical image are calculated and compared. A hash can be compared to a digital fingerprint of the data whereby an algorithm such as MD5, SHA1, SHA-256, or even SHA-512 can be run against the evidence data to produce a unique output. If one bit changes in the evidence and the hash is again calculated...