Towards automated forensic event reconstruction of malicious code (Poster Abstract)

A call for formalizing digital forensic investigations has been proposed by academics and practitioners alike [1, 2]. Many currently proposed methods of malware analysis for forensic investigation purposes, however, are derived based on the investigators’ practical experience. This paper presents a formal approach for reconstructing the activities of a malicious executable found in a victim’s system during a post-mortem analysis. The behavior of a suspect executable is modeled as a finite state automaton where each state represents behavior that results in an observable modification to the victim’s system. The derived model of the malicious code allows for accurate reasoning and deduction of the occurrence of malicious activities even when anti-forensic methods are employed to disrupt the investigation process.