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Memory Forensics

Posted on 9 November 2011 by c0decstuff

Pull Process & Network Connections from a Memory Dump


In the previous article, we learned how to pull passwords from a memory dump file. This time, we will cover viewing a process list and network connections out of captured memory files.

Volatility’s “pslist” command can be used to view the processes that were running on a Windows system:

volatility pslist -f memdumpfilename.raw –profile=Win7SP1x86 (Use double dashes in front of profile for some reason they are showing up as a single)


From the output of the command, we see the physical memory location, process name and the PID number of all process that were running on the system. This helps deduce if something was running on the computer that should not have been and as you will see in a future article, allows you to view programs that may be running under the process.

The next step is to view all network connections that were active from the memory dump:

volatility netscan -f memdumpfilename.raw –profile=Win7SP1x86 (Use double dashes in front of profile)

The data returned shows all network connections, including the process name, source and destination IP addresses – including ports. This is just a short snip of what was actually returned, the actual list is easily twice as long. This information helps the analyst see if there were any strange network connections active. Or can help the penetration tester gain valuable information about the network.

The last command that we will look at this time is “bioskbd“.

volatility bioskbd -f memdumpfilename.raw –profile=Win7SP1x86 (Use double dashes in front of profile)

As you can see there is no data returned on this memory dump. But what does “bioskbd” actually do? This interesting command has the ability to pull passwords that are resident from the bios cache buffer. Though most newer systems (like the system that this memory dump was taken from) purge the bios keyboard buffer, many older ones did not. On an old system you might be able to retrieve BIOS boot passwords, or even the passwords for disk encryption systems.

That’s it for this post, on the next Memory Forensics post, we will take a look at pulling malware samples off of an infected system!


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