File scanning is an important activity in enterprise environments. Whether it is to identify where credentials are being used, the use of sensitive information, or server configuration information, you will need a technique to quickly and efficiently scan file data. PowerShell natively has the ability to gather data from clear text files and parse information. Some of the most common clear text files include, but are not limited to, text files, log files, XML files, configuration files, and scripting files.
When you are developing a scanning function, you will have to scan the directories for specific file types and the contents of the file itself. To scan for specific file types, you can leverage the Get-ChildItem cmdlet with a folder path as an argument. You also use the -Include parameter with the wildcard file extension that you want to search for. For log and text files, wildcard file extensions would look like *.log and *.txt respectively. If you want to scan multiple...