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Learning Python for Forensics

You're reading from   Learning Python for Forensics Leverage the power of Python in forensic investigations

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Product type Paperback
Published in Jan 2019
Publisher Packt
ISBN-13 9781789341690
Length 476 pages
Edition 2nd Edition
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Authors (2):
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Preston Miller Preston Miller
Author Profile Icon Preston Miller
Preston Miller
Chapin Bryce Chapin Bryce
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Chapin Bryce
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Table of Contents (15) Chapters Close

Preface 1. Now for Something Completely Different FREE CHAPTER 2. Python Fundamentals 3. Parsing Text Files 4. Working with Serialized Data Structures 5. Databases in Python 6. Extracting Artifacts from Binary Files 7. Fuzzy Hashing 8. The Media Age 9. Uncovering Time 10. Rapidly Triaging Systems 11. Parsing Outlook PST Containers 12. Recovering Transient Database Records 13. Coming Full Circle 14. Other Books You May Enjoy

Introducing the struct module

The struct module is part of the standard Python library and is incredibly useful. The struct library is used to convert C structures to or from binary data. Full documentation for this module can be found at http://docs.python.org/3/library/struct.html.

For forensic purposes, the most important function in the struct module is the unpack() method. This method takes a format string representing the objects to be extracted from the binary data. It is important that the size dictated by the format string correlates to the size of the binary data supplied to the function.

The format string informs the unpack() function of what kind of data is in the binary object and how it should be interpreted. If we do not correctly identify the types of data or try to unpack more or less than what is provided, the struct module will throw an exception. The following...

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