Forensic journey: hunting evil within AmCache


When it comes to digital forensics, AmCache plays a vital role in identifying malicious activities in Windows systems. This artifact allows the identification of the execution of both benign and malicious software on a machine.

It is managed by the operating system, and at the time of writing this article, there is no known way to modify or remove AmCache data. Thus, in an incident response scenario, it could be the key to identifying lost artifacts (e.g., ransomware that auto-deletes itself), allowing analysts to search for patterns left by the attacker, such as file names and paths.

Read more…
Source: Kaspersky


Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox


Related:

  • How UK National Health Service learned the lessons of WannaCry to protect hospitals from attack

    May 13, 2021

    Four years ago, the UK’s National Health Service suddenly found itself one of the most high-profile victims of a global cyberattack. On 12 May 2017, WannaCry ransomware hit organisations around the world, but hospitals and GP surgeries throughout England and Scotland were particularly badly affected. A significant number of services were disrupted as malware encrypted computers ...

  • Incremental improvements are not enough as Biden signs order boosting US cyber posture

    May 13, 2021

    United States President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Wednesday to boost the cyber posture of the federal government. The order points to recent incidents including the ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline, Exchange vulnerabilities that led to the FBI removing web shells from US servers, and the SolarWinds attack. The order said the federal government must ...

  • DarkSide Ransomware: Best Practices for Preventing Business Disruption from Ransomware Attacks

    May 11, 2021

    The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are aware of a ransomware attack affecting a critical infrastructure (CI) entity—a pipeline company—in the United States. Malicious cyber actors deployed DarkSide ransomware against the pipeline company’s information technology (IT) network. At this time, there is no indication that the entity’s ...

  • Industrial Cybersecurity: Guidelines for Protecting Critical Infrastructure

    May 11, 2021

    Over the weekend, the Alpharetta, GA based Colonial Pipeline was hit by an extensive ransomware attack that shut down its information technology (IT) and industrial operational technology (OT) systems. Simply put, an all-too-common ransomware event targeting IT systems encouraged a voluntary shutdown on the production side (OT) of the business to prevent further exposure. Colonial ...

  • Just What The Cyber Doctors Ordered – OT For Pharmaceutical Companies

    April 20, 2021

    Several digital attacks against pharmaceutical companies have made news in the past few years. Back in 2017, for instance, Merck fell victim to NotPetya. The wiper malware spread to the pharmaceutical giant’s headquarters, rendered years of research inaccessible, affected various production facilities and caused $1.3 billion in damages, according to Bloomberg News. A couple of ...

  • FBI nuked web shells from hacked Exchange Servers without telling owners

    April 13, 2021

    A court-approved FBI operation was conducted to remove web shells from compromised US-based Microsoft Exchange servers without first notifying the servers’ owners. On March 2nd, Microsoft released a series of Microsoft Exchange security updates for vulnerabilities actively exploited by a hacking group known as HAFNIUM. These vulnerabilities are collectively known as ProxyLogon and were used by threat ...