vola-auto

The ultimate streamline for Volatility 3. Speed up process of memory artifacts extraction phase

Why this

• Why this project is developed? We want to accelerate the artifacts extraction phase and combine automatic artifact analyzing strategy. Volatility 3 focuses on reading memory, vola-auto focuses on extracting & analyzing artifacts.
• Why not a simple project using Volatility SDK? Frankly, Volatility 3 is written in Python, which makes the wrapper program should also be written in Python. And, vola-auto is not intended to replace Volatility 3, but rather become an extra flavor for researchers who had already installed and been familiar with one of the best memory forensic tools. On the other hand, with golang, it's easy to cross compile as standalone binaries for multiple OSes.

What Vola-auto can do

Main Features

1. Auto run common plugins: info, filescan, process, etc., parallely. Auto dump common artifacts file: MFT, Logfile, prefetch, etc. Auto run customized artifacts analytics.
2. Add regex for dumping files (currently Volatility 3 does not support it, which is different from Volatility 2).
3. Run multiple commands parallelly from a file with subcommand batch.

Feature List of auto streamline

	Status
VOLATILITY PLUGINS
common plugins: info, filescan, netstat, envars, hivelist, iat, mft scan, mft ads, lsadump	✅
process plugins: cmdline, pslist, psscan, pstree, handles	✅
plugins not mentioned here can be run parallely with subcommand batch	✅
support Volatility 2 plugins	☑️
ARTIFACTS COLLECTOR PLUGINS
dump $MFT	✅
dump $LogFile	✅
dump $UsnJrnl:$J	✅
dump prefetch files	✅
dump event log files (evtx)	✅
dump amcache hive	✅
dump SRU files	✅
dump ActivitiesCache.db	☑️
dump SYSTEM, SAM, SECURITY, SOFTWARE hives	✅
dump NTUSER.dat	☑️
dump wpndatabase.db for Windows notification	✅
construct better visualization for process tree	✅
construct timeline for process list	✅
construct better netstat for processes	☑️
construct folder structure for entire machine	☑️
dump artifacts for Edge browser	☑️
dump artifacts for Chrome browser	☑️
dump artifacts for Firefox browser	☑️
dump artifacts for Safari browser	☑️
dump artifacts for IE browser	☑️
dump artifacts for Windows Defender	☑️
dump artifacts for important registries	☑️
dump suspicious files in startup, desktop, downloads	☑️
ARTIFACTS ANALYTICS PLUGINS
find weird environment variables of processes	✅
map process behaviors based on evtx	☑️
auto check signature of executables and dlls	☑️

Where: ✅: Completed ☑️: TODO

Environment

• Could build & run vola-auto on Windows, Linux, macOS
• Currently support Volatility 3's Windows plugins

Prerequisite

• Python3
• Volatility 3 (Vola-auto tested with Volatility 3 Framework 2.5.2 to 2.7.0)
  • Our tool relies on Volatility 3, a memory forensics framework, for analyzing memory dumps. Users need to obtain Volatility 3 separately and comply with its licensing terms.
  • License: Volatility 3 is licensed under the Volatility Software License Version 1.0. Please review the Volatility Software License Version 1.0 for details on your obligations when obtaining and using Volatility 3.

Getting started

Environment

• Install requirements for Volatility 3 or activate the env that you already setup for Volatility 3
• If running golang code directly, install go modules first with go install

Auto Streamline

• Run Volatility 3 auto streamline with --vol pointing to volatility 3 folder, and --file or -f pointing to memory dump file

  go run cmd\main.go --vol <path_to_volatility3> -f <path_to_memory_dump> -o <output_folder>
  

  • By default (also means when -o is not specified), vola-auto will generate folder artifacts in folder containing path_to_memory_dump

Dump files with regex

• To dump files with regex, use subcommand dumpfiles with -reg flag to pass regex.

  go run cmd\main.go --vol <path_to_volatility3> -f <path_to_memory_dump> -o <output_folder> dumpfiles -reg "SCHEDLGU\.TXT$"
  

  • The dumped files will be stored in 1_dump_files folder inside output_folder

  • Note: If output_folder does not contain filescan.txt (output file of filescan plugin) yet, vola-auto will run filescan plugin first to write filescan.txt, then starting to dump files

  • To specify a specific location for filescan.txt, use -fs flag

    go run cmd\main.go --vol <path_to_volatility3> -f <path_to_memory_dump> -o <output_folder> dumpfiles -reg "SCHEDLGU\.TXT$" -fs <path_to_filescan.txt>
    

Execute batch of commands parallely

• Write commands in each line in a file. For example:

  windows.pstree.PsTree
  windows.psscan.PsScan
  windows.pslist.PsList
  

• Use subcommand batch

  go run cmd\main.go --vol <path_to_volatility3> -f <path_to_memory_dump> -o <output_folder> batch -f <path_to_command_file>
  

  • Results of command will be logged to files in 2_batch_cmd_results folder inside output_folder

Tips

• To run vola-auto in verbose mode, run the program with environment variable DEBUG having value as 1

  # windows
  SET DEBUG=1 && go run cmd\main.go --vol <path_to_volatility3> -f <path_to_memory_dump>
  

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the Volatility Foundation for developing Volatility 3, which our tool utilizes for memory forensics analysis.

• Volatility Foundation. Volatility 3 [Computer software]. https://github.com/volatilityfoundation/volatility3