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authorThomas Voss <mail@thomasvoss.com> 2024-11-27 20:54:24 +0100
committerThomas Voss <mail@thomasvoss.com> 2024-11-27 20:54:24 +0100
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+Network Working Group D. Brezinski
+Request for Comments: 3227 In-Q-Tel
+BCP: 55 T. Killalea
+Category: Best Current Practice neart.org
+ February 2002
+
+
+ Guidelines for Evidence Collection and Archiving
+
+Status of this Memo
+
+ This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the
+ Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
+ improvements. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
+
+Copyright Notice
+
+ Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2002). All Rights Reserved.
+
+Abstract
+
+ A "security incident" as defined in the "Internet Security Glossary",
+ RFC 2828, is a security-relevant system event in which the system's
+ security policy is disobeyed or otherwise breached. The purpose of
+ this document is to provide System Administrators with guidelines on
+ the collection and archiving of evidence relevant to such a security
+ incident.
+
+ If evidence collection is done correctly, it is much more useful in
+ apprehending the attacker, and stands a much greater chance of being
+ admissible in the event of a prosecution.
+
+Table of Contents
+
+ 1 Introduction.................................................... 2
+ 1.1 Conventions Used in this Document........................... 2
+ 2 Guiding Principles during Evidence Collection................... 3
+ 2.1 Order of Volatility......................................... 4
+ 2.2 Things to avoid............................................. 4
+ 2.3 Privacy Considerations...................................... 5
+ 2.4 Legal Considerations........................................ 5
+ 3 The Collection Procedure........................................ 6
+ 3.1 Transparency................................................ 6
+ 3.2 Collection Steps............................................ 6
+ 4 The Archiving Procedure......................................... 7
+ 4.1 Chain of Custody............................................ 7
+ 4.2 The Archive................................................. 7
+ 5 Tools you'll need............................................... 7
+
+
+
+Brezinski & Killalea Best Current Practice [Page 1]
+
+RFC 3227 Evidence Collection and Archiving February 2002
+
+
+ 6 References...................................................... 8
+ 7 Acknowledgements................................................ 8
+ 8 Security Considerations......................................... 8
+ 9 Authors' Addresses.............................................. 9
+ 10 Full Copyright Statement.......................................10
+
+1 Introduction
+
+ A "security incident" as defined in [RFC2828] is a security-relevant
+ system event in which the system's security policy is disobeyed or
+ otherwise breached. The purpose of this document is to provide
+ System Administrators with guidelines on the collection and archiving
+ of evidence relevant to such a security incident. It's not our
+ intention to insist that all System Administrators rigidly follow
+ these guidelines every time they have a security incident. Rather,
+ we want to provide guidance on what they should do if they elect to
+ collect and protect information relating to an intrusion.
+
+ Such collection represents a considerable effort on the part of the
+ System Administrator. Great progress has been made in recent years
+ to speed up the re-installation of the Operating System and to
+ facilitate the reversion of a system to a 'known' state, thus making
+ the 'easy option' even more attractive. Meanwhile little has been
+ done to provide easy ways of archiving evidence (the difficult
+ option). Further, increasing disk and memory capacities and the more
+ widespread use of stealth and cover-your-tracks tactics by attackers
+ have exacerbated the problem.
+
+ If evidence collection is done correctly, it is much more useful in
+ apprehending the attacker, and stands a much greater chance of being
+ admissible in the event of a prosecution.
+
+ You should use these guidelines as a basis for formulating your
+ site's evidence collection procedures, and should incorporate your
+ site's procedures into your Incident Handling documentation. The
+ guidelines in this document may not be appropriate under all
+ jurisdictions. Once you've formulated your site's evidence
+ collection procedures, you should have law enforcement for your
+ jurisdiction confirm that they're adequate.
+
+1.1 Conventions Used in this Document
+
+ The key words "REQUIRED", "MUST", "MUST NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT",
+ and "MAY" in this document are to be interpreted as described in "Key
+ words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels" [RFC2119].
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Brezinski & Killalea Best Current Practice [Page 2]
+
+RFC 3227 Evidence Collection and Archiving February 2002
+
+
+2 Guiding Principles during Evidence Collection
+
+ - Adhere to your site's Security Policy and engage the
+ appropriate Incident Handling and Law Enforcement personnel.
+
+ - Capture as accurate a picture of the system as possible.
+
+ - Keep detailed notes. These should include dates and times. If
+ possible generate an automatic transcript. (e.g., On Unix
+ systems the 'script' program can be used, however the output
+ file it generates should not be to media that is part of the
+ evidence). Notes and print-outs should be signed and dated.
+
+ - Note the difference between the system clock and UTC. For each
+ timestamp provided, indicate whether UTC or local time is used.
+
+ - Be prepared to testify (perhaps years later) outlining all
+ actions you took and at what times. Detailed notes will be
+ vital.
+
+ - Minimise changes to the data as you are collecting it. This is
+ not limited to content changes; you should avoid updating file
+ or directory access times.
+
+ - Remove external avenues for change.
+
+ - When confronted with a choice between collection and analysis
+ you should do collection first and analysis later.
+
+ - Though it hardly needs stating, your procedures should be
+ implementable. As with any aspect of an incident response
+ policy, procedures should be tested to ensure feasibility,
+ particularly in a crisis. If possible procedures should be
+ automated for reasons of speed and accuracy. Be methodical.
+
+ - For each device, a methodical approach should be adopted which
+ follows the guidelines laid down in your collection procedure.
+ Speed will often be critical so where there are a number of
+ devices requiring examination it may be appropriate to spread
+ the work among your team to collect the evidence in parallel.
+ However on a single given system collection should be done step
+ by step.
+
+ - Proceed from the volatile to the less volatile (see the Order
+ of Volatility below).
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Brezinski & Killalea Best Current Practice [Page 3]
+
+RFC 3227 Evidence Collection and Archiving February 2002
+
+
+ - You should make a bit-level copy of the system's media. If you
+ wish to do forensics analysis you should make a bit-level copy
+ of your evidence copy for that purpose, as your analysis will
+ almost certainly alter file access times. Avoid doing
+ forensics on the evidence copy.
+
+2.1 Order of Volatility
+
+ When collecting evidence you should proceed from the volatile to the
+ less volatile. Here is an example order of volatility for a typical
+ system.
+
+ - registers, cache
+
+ - routing table, arp cache, process table, kernel statistics,
+ memory
+
+ - temporary file systems
+
+ - disk
+
+ - remote logging and monitoring data that is relevant to the
+ system in question
+
+ - physical configuration, network topology
+
+ - archival media
+
+2.2 Things to avoid
+
+ It's all too easy to destroy evidence, however inadvertently.
+
+ - Don't shutdown until you've completed evidence collection.
+ Much evidence may be lost and the attacker may have altered the
+ startup/shutdown scripts/services to destroy evidence.
+
+ - Don't trust the programs on the system. Run your evidence
+ gathering programs from appropriately protected media (see
+ below).
+
+ - Don't run programs that modify the access time of all files on
+ the system (e.g., 'tar' or 'xcopy').
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Brezinski & Killalea Best Current Practice [Page 4]
+
+RFC 3227 Evidence Collection and Archiving February 2002
+
+
+ - When removing external avenues for change note that simply
+ disconnecting or filtering from the network may trigger
+ "deadman switches" that detect when they're off the net and
+ wipe evidence.
+
+2.3 Privacy Considerations
+
+ - Respect the privacy rules and guidelines of your company and
+ your legal jurisdiction. In particular, make sure no
+ information collected along with the evidence you are searching
+ for is available to anyone who would not normally have access
+ to this information. This includes access to log files (which
+ may reveal patterns of user behaviour) as well as personal data
+ files.
+
+ - Do not intrude on people's privacy without strong
+ justification. In particular, do not collect information from
+ areas you do not normally have reason to access (such as
+ personal file stores) unless you have sufficient indication
+ that there is a real incident.
+
+ - Make sure you have the backing of your company's established
+ procedures in taking the steps you do to collect evidence of an
+ incident.
+
+2.4 Legal Considerations
+
+ Computer evidence needs to be
+
+ - Admissible: It must conform to certain legal rules before it
+ can be put before a court.
+
+ - Authentic: It must be possible to positively tie evidentiary
+ material to the incident.
+
+ - Complete: It must tell the whole story and not just a
+ particular perspective.
+
+ - Reliable: There must be nothing about how the evidence was
+ collected and subsequently handled that casts doubt about its
+ authenticity and veracity.
+
+ - Believable: It must be readily believable and understandable
+ by a court.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Brezinski & Killalea Best Current Practice [Page 5]
+
+RFC 3227 Evidence Collection and Archiving February 2002
+
+
+3 The Collection Procedure
+
+ Your collection procedures should be as detailed as possible. As is
+ the case with your overall Incident Handling procedures, they should
+ be unambiguous, and should minimise the amount of decision-making
+ needed during the collection process.
+
+3.1 Transparency
+
+ The methods used to collect evidence should be transparent and
+ reproducible. You should be prepared to reproduce precisely the
+ methods you used, and have those methods tested by independent
+ experts.
+
+3.2 Collection Steps
+
+ - Where is the evidence? List what systems were involved in the
+ incident and from which evidence will be collected.
+
+ - Establish what is likely to be relevant and admissible. When
+ in doubt err on the side of collecting too much rather than not
+ enough.
+
+ - For each system, obtain the relevant order of volatility.
+
+ - Remove external avenues for change.
+
+ - Following the order of volatility, collect the evidence with
+ tools as discussed in Section 5.
+
+ - Record the extent of the system's clock drift.
+
+ - Question what else may be evidence as you work through the
+ collection steps.
+
+ - Document each step.
+
+ - Don't forget the people involved. Make notes of who was there
+ and what were they doing, what they observed and how they
+ reacted.
+
+ Where feasible you should consider generating checksums and
+ cryptographically signing the collected evidence, as this may make it
+ easier to preserve a strong chain of evidence. In doing so you must
+ not alter the evidence.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Brezinski & Killalea Best Current Practice [Page 6]
+
+RFC 3227 Evidence Collection and Archiving February 2002
+
+
+4 The Archiving Procedure
+
+ Evidence must be strictly secured. In addition, the Chain of Custody
+ needs to be clearly documented.
+
+4.1 Chain of Custody
+
+ You should be able to clearly describe how the evidence was found,
+ how it was handled and everything that happened to it.
+
+ The following need to be documented
+
+ - Where, when, and by whom was the evidence discovered and
+ collected.
+
+ - Where, when and by whom was the evidence handled or examined.
+
+ - Who had custody of the evidence, during what period. How was
+ it stored.
+
+ - When the evidence changed custody, when and how did the
+ transfer occur (include shipping numbers, etc.).
+
+4.2 Where and how to Archive
+
+ If possible commonly used media (rather than some obscure storage
+ media) should be used for archiving.
+
+ Access to evidence should be extremely restricted, and should be
+ clearly documented. It should be possible to detect unauthorised
+ access.
+
+5 Tools you'll need
+
+ You should have the programs you need to do evidence collection and
+ forensics on read-only media (e.g., a CD). You should have prepared
+ such a set of tools for each of the Operating Systems that you manage
+ in advance of having to use it.
+
+ Your set of tools should include the following:
+
+ - a program for examining processes (e.g., 'ps').
+
+ - programs for examining system state (e.g., 'showrev',
+ 'ifconfig', 'netstat', 'arp').
+
+ - a program for doing bit-to-bit copies (e.g., 'dd', 'SafeBack').
+
+
+
+
+Brezinski & Killalea Best Current Practice [Page 7]
+
+RFC 3227 Evidence Collection and Archiving February 2002
+
+
+ - programs for generating checksums and signatures (e.g.,
+ 'sha1sum', a checksum-enabled 'dd', 'SafeBack', 'pgp').
+
+ - programs for generating core images and for examining them
+ (e.g., 'gcore', 'gdb').
+
+ - scripts to automate evidence collection (e.g., The Coroner's
+ Toolkit [FAR1999]).
+
+ The programs in your set of tools should be statically linked, and
+ should not require the use of any libraries other than those on the
+ read-only media. Even then, since modern rootkits may be installed
+ through loadable kernel modules, you should consider that your tools
+ might not be giving you a full picture of the system.
+
+ You should be prepared to testify to the authenticity and reliability
+ of the tools that you use.
+
+6 References
+
+ [FAR1999] Farmer, D., and W Venema, "Computer Forensics Analysis
+ Class Handouts", http://www.fish.com/forensics/
+
+ [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
+ Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
+
+ [RFC2196] Fraser, B., "Site Security Handbook", FYI 8, RFC 2196,
+ September 1997.
+
+ [RFC2350] Brownlee, N. and E. Guttman, "Expectations for Computer
+ Security Incident Response", FYI 8, RFC 2350, June 1998.
+
+ [RFC2828] Shirey, R., "Internet Security Glossary", FYI 36, RFC
+ 2828, May 2000.
+
+7 Acknowledgements
+
+ We gratefully acknowledge the constructive comments received from
+ Harald Alvestrand, Byron Collie, Barbara Y. Fraser, Gordon Lennox,
+ Andrew Rees, Steve Romig and Floyd Short.
+
+8 Security Considerations
+
+ This entire document discuses security issues.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Brezinski & Killalea Best Current Practice [Page 8]
+
+RFC 3227 Evidence Collection and Archiving February 2002
+
+
+9 Authors' Addresses
+
+ Dominique Brezinski
+ In-Q-Tel
+ 1000 Wilson Blvd., Ste. 2900
+ Arlington, VA 22209
+ USA
+
+ EMail: dbrezinski@In-Q-Tel.org
+
+
+ Tom Killalea
+ Lisi/n na Bro/n
+ Be/al A/tha na Muice
+ Co. Mhaigh Eo
+ IRELAND
+
+ Phone: +1 206 266-2196
+ EMail: tomk@neart.org
+
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+Brezinski & Killalea Best Current Practice [Page 9]
+
+RFC 3227 Evidence Collection and Archiving February 2002
+
+
+10. Full Copyright Statement
+
+ Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2002). All Rights Reserved.
+
+ This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
+ others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
+ or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published
+ and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any
+ kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
+ included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this
+ document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
+ the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
+ Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of
+ developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for
+ copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be
+ followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than
+ English.
+
+ The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
+ revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.
+
+ This document and the information contained herein is provided on an
+ "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING
+ TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING
+ BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION
+ HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
+ MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Acknowledgement
+
+ Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
+ Internet Society.
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+Brezinski & Killalea Best Current Practice [Page 10]
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