Analyzing the Windows Event Log

Windows includes many monitoring and logging capabilities and traces data and events for a large amount and variety of activities occurring in the operating system. The vast number of events, which can be logged, does neither make it easy for an administrator to identify the specific important events nor helps a forensic investigator to find Indicators of Compromise. Therefore, we will start this section with a small introduction to the Windows Event Log and the changes in its format over time, followed by a description of the important event types that should help an investigator to quickly find suspicious actions in the large amount of other events. In the last section of this chapter, we will demonstrate how to parse the Event Log and automatically find the potential IOCs (e.g., user logons, service creation, and so on).

The Windows Event Log

According to Microsoft, Windows Event Log files are special files that record significant events, such as when a...