Forensic Application-Fingerprinting Based on File System Metadata

Abstract

While much work has been invested in tools for aquisition and extraction of digital evidence, there are only few tools that allow for automatic event reconstruction. In this paper, we present a generic approach for forensic event reconstruction based on digital evidence from file systems. Our approach applies the idea of fingerprinting to changes made by applications in file system metadata. We present a system with which it is possible to automatically compute file system fingerprints of individual actions. Using NTFS timestamps as an example, we show that with our approach it is possible to automatically reconstruct actions performed by different applications even if the set of files accessed by those actions overlap.