Showing posts with label Tips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tips. Show all posts

POSIX Regular Expressions in EnScript and .NET

James Habben

I am sure you have spent a little intimate time with EnCase doing keyword searches, so you know that EnCase has basic GREP capabilities. This is a powerful feature that allows for searches to be performed with patterns that can eliminate false positive hits. Recently, we hosted a webinar with guest Suzanne Widup, describing some techniques and benefits of using GREP in EnCase.

GREP is a term that comes from the Unix world long ago. It stands for Globally search for Regular Expressions and Print. This command line utility was used to search through data and print out results that matched the given pattern. Because of the popularity of the tool, the name has become synonymous with Regular Expressions (Regex). Though there is a defined standard, POSIX, the syntax of patterns used in Regex actually varies quite wildly depending on the platform engine and programming language that is being used. EnCase is no exception. In homage to our habit of prefixing our product names with “En”, I jokingly refer to our syntax of regex as “EnGrep.”

Feature Spotlight: Report Template Wizard

Ken Mizota

No forensic investigation is complete without a comprehensive report tailored to the intended audience. Whether the cases involve crime, civil litigation, or policy non-compliance, the end goal of an investigation is to share findings with others. EnCase Version 7 provides powerful tools to efficiently incorporate the findings of the investigation into a Report Template. While powerful, Report Templates can have a steep learning curve, and particularly in time-sensitive investigations, simplicity may be more desirable than power.

EnCase Version 7.10 adds the Report Template Wizard. You can quickly add a Bookmark Folder to the Report Template, specify metadata, perform basic formatting, and preview the report. The Report Template Wizard simplifies reporting while maintaining the power of Report Templates. Read on beyond the jump to learn more.

Poweliks: Persistent Malware Living Only in the Registry? Impossible!

James Habben

The ultimate desire for malware authors is to be able to have their code run every time a computer starts, and leave no trace on the disk for us to find. Let me reassure you that it hasn’t happened just yet, at least not that I have seen. There have been plenty of examples over the years that have taken advantage of some clever techniques that disguise their disk-based homes, but that’s just it–disguise!

A couple of recent posts on “Poweliks” here and here shed light on creative measures attackers use to store malware in the Windows Registry. In short, there is a registry value that executes an encoded script stored in another registry value, which then drops a file on disk for execution.

Version 7 Tech Tip #2: Processing Multiple Cases Serially from a Single Workstation

Jasper Rowe

Did you know you can use a single instance of EnCase® to queue jobs from different cases? 

In previous versions, it was possible to process multiple cases simultaneously using multiple sessions of EnCase. Even though the licensing allowed for this, the processing itself would have had to rely on shared resources. 

Version 7 Tech Tip #1: Matching Parent E-Mails with Attachments in Searches

James Gagen

This is the first in a series of brief, but frequently asked questions and answers about working with EnCase® Enterprise Version 7. We hope they save you time and help you close cases faster.

One of the questions we are often asked in Technical Services about working with e-mail searches is, "When I find a relevant e-mail attachment, how can I find the e-mail that the attachment belongs to?" Searching in e-mail may result in keywords being found in both e-mails and attachments. This is how to locate the e-mail to which the attachment belongs: