Extracting Username/Passwords from RAM Dump : Volatility Framework makes it Easy

1.  For those of you who have started reading this post coz of the tempting post title claiming extracting username/passwords from a RAM Dump,I must assure you it is possible easily in few steps using Volatility Framework.In the post ahead I have a RAM dump of a Windows 7 OS and I have been able to extract the user names and passwords of these users in three simple steps using Volatility Framework.Well,I will quickly get to the steps with screenshots :

Setup Required

 - Volatility Framework Installed.
[How to Install at http://anupriti.blogspot.in/2015/09/volatility-advanced-memory-forensics.html]

- Taking Ram Dump from Windows
[How to take RAM dump at para 3 of http://anupriti.blogspot.in/2015/09/volatility-command-using-imageinfo-to.html]

Here I am using two commands basically ie hivelist and hashdump

HIVELIST

Hivelist is used to locate the virtual addresses of registry hives in memory, and the full paths to the corresponding hive on disk.

Command Usage

python vol.py --profile=Win7SP0x86 -f /home/cuckoo/Desktop/windows_7_ramdump.raw hivelist

You get a similar output as seen below :

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Note Virtual Address for SYSTEM as highlighted
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Note Virtual Address for SAM as highlighted
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HASHDUMP

Hashdump is used to extract and decrypt cached domain credentials stored in the registry.

Command Usage

To use hashdump, pass the virtual address of the SYSTEM hive as -y and the virtual address of the SAM hive as -s, as shown below:

python vol.py --profile=Win7SP0x86 hashdump -f /home/cuckoo/Desktop/windows_7_ramdump.raw -y 0x8901a360 -s 0x8faff008

Hashdump output seen with user names and NTLM dump
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As we see vide above screen shot we have been able to extract names of users as stalin,VOLA and TILITY with hash of passwords against their names.Now we will decrypt these hashes.

DECRYPTING NTLM hash

Now comes decrypting this hash as we have got vide hashdump above.Hashes can now be cracked using John the Ripper, rainbow tables, etc.Now no need to install these crackers separately.Simply google for online decryptos and you will get the password too.I used this site at http://www.hashkiller.co.uk/ntlm-decrypter.aspx

Screen shots below:

Password extracted is test_1234
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Password extracted is test_123
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Password extracted is test
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So in all two terminal commands running volatility hivelist and hashdump followed by decrypting the hash online will give you the usernames and passwords from the RAM dump.Any queries and questions or advises are most welcome.Thanks

Volatility Framework Command : Using dlllist - dlldump to extricate DLLfile details

 This post will share an example to run the two volatility terminal commands including dllllist and dlldump  to display a process's loaded DLLs.

Before I proceed ahead,I would assume that you have installed volatility in your Linux system(in my case I am using UBUNTU, Installation explained at my earlier post at http://anupriti.blogspot.in/2015/09/volatility-advanced-memory-forensics.html) and you have a RAM dump of the OS u desire to analyse.In my case here I have taken the RAM dump of a Windows 7 OS as explained here at http://anupriti.blogspot.in/2015/09/volatility-command-using-imageinfo-to.html

dlllist

dlllist is used to display a process's loaded DLLs.DLLs are automatically added to this list when a process calls LoadLibrary (or some derivative such as LdrLoadDll).

vol.py --profile=Win7SP0x86 -f windows7_image.raw dlllist

To display the DLLs for a specific process instead of all processes, there is option to use the switch -p or --pid filter as shown below:

vol.py --profile=Win7SP0x86 -f windows7_image.raw dlllist --pid=1892

To display the DLLs for a process that is hidden or unlinked by a rootkit, first use the psscan to get the physical offset of the EPROCESS object and then:

vol.py --profile=Win7SP0x86 -f windows7_image.raw dlllist --offset=0x04a291a8

(Click on the image to ENLARGE)

dlldump

dlldump command is used to extract a DLL from a process's memory space and dump it to disk for analysis.The syntax is nearly the same as what has been seen earlier with any command.This plugin provisions the following :

- Dump all DLLs from a hidden/unlinked process (with --offset=OFFSET)
- Dump all DLLs from a specific process (with --pid=PID)
- Dump all DLLs from all processes
- Dump a PE from anywhere in process memory (with --base=BASEADDR), this option is useful for extracting hidden DLLs

To specify an output directory, use --dump-dir=DIR or -d DIR.

vol.py --profile=Win7SP0x86 -f windows7_image.raw dlldump --dump-dir output

where output is the name of directory where u get the dll dump

the output directory will be seen as seen below :

More at : https://code.google.com/p/volatility/wiki/CommandReference#dlllist

Volatility Framework Command : Using pslist - pstree - psscan to identify process details from mem dump

This post will share an example to run the three volatility terminal commands including pslist, pstree and psscan

Before I proceed ahead,I would assume that you have installed volatility in your Linux system(in my case I am using UBUNTU,Installation explained at my earlier post at http://anupriti.blogspot.in/2015/09/volatility-advanced-memory-forensics.html) and you have a RAM dump of the OS u desire to analyse.In my case here I have taken the RAM dump of a Windows 7 OS as explained here at http://anupriti.blogspot.in/2015/09/volatility-command-using-imageinfo-to.html

Usage as follows :

pslist

The command pslist will be useful for any forensic prelim inquiry to find out the processes being run on the pc at the likely time of incident.The pslist command is used to list the processes of a system and it does not detect hidden or unlinked processes."pslist" module utilizes the same algorithm as the tasklist command that would be executed on the live computer. And also, Windows Task Manager uses the same approach as well.The command "pslist" traverses the list of active process structures that the Windows kernel maintains.The screen shot below shows a task manager activity of a windows PC i am using for test.Subsequently I have taken a fresh dump at this time and then analysed this dump with volatility on UBUNTU to find the process details which actually come out as the same as seen in the screenshots below :

Windows TASK MANAGER as seen in Windows OS
(CLICK TO ENLARGE)

The command usage at terminal syntax goes like this :

vol.py --profile=Win7SP0x86 -f windows_memory.raw pslist

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 [TRIM]

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 [TRIM]

The columns display the offset, process name, process ID, the parent process ID, number of threads, number of handles, and date/time when the process started. The offset is a virtual address by default, but the physical offset can be obtained with the -P switch as seen in the command below with screenshot.

vol.py --profile=Win7SP0x86 -f windows_memory.raw pslist -P

(Output with -P Switch)
Click on image to ENLARGE

pstree

pstree command is used to view the process listing in tree form and enumerates processes using the same technique as pslist, so it will also not show hidden or unlinked processes. Child process are indicated using indention and periods.SCreen shot of output and syntax as below :

vol.py --profile=Win7SP0x86 -f windows_memory.raw pstree

Click on image to ENLARGE

 psscan

psscan is used to enumerate processes by pool tag scanning and can find processes that previously terminated (inactive) and processes that have been hidden or unlinked by a rootkit. Syntax and screenshot of output as follows:

vol.py --profile=Win7SP0x86 -f win7.dmp psscan

Click on image to ENLARGE

Volatility Command : Using kdbgscan/kprcscan to scan for potential KDBG/KPCR structures

This post will share an example to run the two volatility terminal commands including kdbgscan and kprcscan.

Before I proceed ahead,I would assume that you have installed volatility in your Linux system(in my case I am using UBUNTU) (Installation explained at my earlier post at http://anupriti.blogspot.in/2015/09/volatility-advanced-memory-forensics.html) and you have a RAM dump of the OS u desire to analyse.In my case here I have taken the RAM dump of a Windows 7 OS as explained here at http://anupriti.blogspot.in/2015/09/volatility-command-using-imageinfo-to.html

Basic intro about these two commands :

kdbgscan

This command is used to scan for potential KDBG structures and is meant to positively identify the correct profile of the system and the correct KDBG (kernel debugger block) address. It simply scans for KDBG header signatures linked to the profiles in Volatility.

Usage : 

python vol.py --profile=Win7SP0x86 -f filename.raw kdbgscan

Screen shot executing the above command shown below :

(CLICK TO ENLARGE)

kpcrscan

This command is used to scan for potential KPCR(Kernel Processor Control Region) structures. A KPCR is a data structure used by the kernel to store the processor-specific data. Kpcrscan searches for and dumps potential KPCR values. On a multi-core system, each processor has its own KPCR. Therefore, ideally  one should see at least as many KPCR addresses as there are processors on the machine from which the memory dump was acquired.Usage as follows :

python vol.py --profile=Win7SP0x86 -f win_image.raw kpcrscan

Screen shot with output as below :

(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE)

Volatility Command : Using IMAGEINFO to find type of System Image

1.   After installing Volatility as I gave details in my post here,next we need to start exploiting the power of Volatility.In my next posts ahead I would decipher usage of the general commands used for Volatility.To start with I initiate with IMAGEINFO command whose output tells the suggested profile that you should pass as the parameter to --profile=PROFILE; there may be more than one profile suggestion if profiles are closely related. One can figure out which one is more appropriate by checking the "Image Type" field, which is blank for Service Pack 0 and filled in for other Service Packs.

2.  Next few screen-shots show how I have taken the RAM dump of Windows 7 OS with the help of DUMPIT utility that I downloaded from here.Dumpit vastly simplifies memory acquisition. Effectively Dumpit combines win32dd and win64dd into one tool and is so simple to use even a non-technical user could do acquisition from a USB key. The dump can then be analyzed using VOLATILITY.

3.   Firstly,I show u the windows screen here with the Dumpit file on desktop which I simply click one to get the dump.

 I get the following screen and I click YES

 Further yes to the command prompt screen starts the dump download as seen below :

 I get a success message here and the dump is ready for analysis.

 The .raw file that is generated,I move it to ubuntu for analysis which has Volatility installed.At the terminal I type the command as :

python vol.py -f file_name.raw imageinfo

and in a few minutes I get the profile suggested as Win7SP0x86 / Win7SP1x86

Volatility-Advanced Memory Forensics Framework : Installation@Ubuntu

1.   The Volatility Framework is a completely open collection of tools, implemented in Python for the extraction of digital artifacts from volatile memory (RAM) samples. Volatility is a memory forensics framework, to analyse ram memory dumps for Windows, Linux, and Mac. In order to analyse a operating system’s RAM memory in Volatility, you need to build the corresponding operating system’s profile.The extraction techniques are performed completely independent of the system being investigated but offer unprecedented visibility into the runtime state of the system. The framework is intended to introduce people to the techniques and complexities associated with extracting digital artifacts from volatile memory samples and provide a platform for further work into this exciting area of research.Vide this post, I am sharing how to install volatility in Ubuntu 12.04 in a step wise manner.The post includes screen-shots and ready to shoot terminal commands for installing other dependent libraries.

Firstly : Installing Dependencies

sudo apt-get install subversion pcregrep libpcre++-dev python-dev -y

Secondly : Installing PyCrypto

First download PyCRypto from https://ftp.dlitz.net/pub/dlitz/crypto/pycrypto/pycrypto-2.6.1.tar.gz

Go to ~/..../Downloads/

tar -zxvf pycrypto-2.6.1.tar.gz

cd pycrypto-2.6.1

python setup.py build

sudo python setup.py build install

Thirdly: Installing Distrom
Distrom ,a disassemble library for x86/AMD64 can be downloaded from https://github.com/gdabah/distorm

Goto downloads where the file is likely downloaded :

unzip distorm3.zip

cd distorm3/

python setup.py build

python setup.py build install

Fourthly: Installing Yara 

Volatility needs another important dependency known as Yara,that can be installed as follows:

wget http://yara-project.googlecode.com/files/yara-1.4.tar.gz

tar -zxvf yara-1.4.tar.gz

cd yara-1.4/

sudo ./configure

sudo make

sudo make install

Fifthly : Installing Yara-Python





Download the tar.gz from https://yara-project.googlecode.com/files/yara-python-1.4a.tar.gz

tar -zxvf yara-python-1.4a.tar.gz

cd yara-python-1.4a/

python setup.py build

python setup.py build install

sudo echo “/usr/local/lib” >> /etc/ld.so.conf

sudo ldconfig

Now through with the installation of dependencies,we go ahead to install Volatility after we download the tar ball from https://code.google.com/p/volatility/downloads/detail?name=volatility-2.3.1.tar.gz&can=2&q=

~/Desktop/F0r3ns1c5/Memory_Forensics/New/volatility-2.3.1$ python setup.py build

~/Desktop/F0r3ns1c5/Memory_Forensics/New/volatility-2.3.1$ python setup.py build install

The installation is complete now and you should get a similar screen as seen below on running the command python vol.py -h