Registry analysis

After we have extracted the registry files from the live system or the forensic image, we need to analyze them.

We will use RegistryRipper, and sysinternals for registry parsing and analysis.

RegistryRipper

Regripper is a Perl open source and cross-platform tool by Harlan Carvey, which can be downloaded from https://code.google.com/p/regripper/ . It parses the registry structure, searches for the forensically important areas, and lists the contents of these areas. The investigator needs to understand the results and extract the anomalies from the output.

The tool is a command line tool, and it also has a simple GUI to carve different types of hives. Through the GUI, the investigator will be able to select one hive file for analysis and the list of plugins to run against this hive file by selecting the type of the hive file from the Profile dropdown. The report will be created in the txt format, and a log file will be created through the analysis process in order to view the...