One man's trash is a forensic examiner's treasure
Recipe difficulty: Medium
Python version: 2.7
Operating system: Linux
While that may not be the exact saying, forensic examination of deleted files residing in the Recycle Bin is an important step in most investigations. The non-technical custodian likely does not understand that these files sent to the Recycle Bin are still present and that we can learn a good deal about the original file, such as its original file path and the time that it was sent to the Recycle Bin. While the specific artifacts vary between versions of Windows, this recipe focuses on the Windows 7 version of the Recycle Bin's $I
and $R
files.
Getting started
This recipe requires the installation of three third-party modules to function: pytsk3
, pyewf
, and unicodecsv
. Refer to Chapter 8, Working with Forensic Evidence Container Recipes for a detailed explanation of installing the pytsk3
and pyewf
modules. All other libraries used in this script are present in Python's standard...