Browse > Article
http://dx.doi.org/10.13089/JKIISC.2011.21.4.89

Research on Mac OS X Physical Memory Analysis  

Lee, Kyeong-Sik (Graduate School of Information Management and Security, Korea University)
Lee, Sang-Jin (Graduate School of Information Management and Security, Korea University)
Publication Information
Journal of the Korea Institute of Information Security & Cryptology / v.21, no.4, 2011 , pp. 89-100 More about this Journal
Abstract
Physical memory analysis has been an issue on a field of live forensic analysis in digital forensics until now. It is very useful to make the result of analysis more reliable, because record of user behavior and data can be founded on physical memory although process is hided. But most memory analysis focuses on windows based system. Because the diversity of target system to be analyzed rises up, it is very important to analyze physical memory based on other OS, not Windows. Mac OS X, has second market share in Operating System, is operated by loading kernel image to physical memory area. In this paper, We propose a methodology for physical memory analysis on Mac OS X using symbol information in kernel image, and acquire a process information, mounted device information, kernel information, kernel extensions(eg. KEXT) and system call entry for detecting system call hooking. In additional to the methodology, we prove that physical memory analysis is very useful though experimental study.
Keywords
Mac OS X; Memory Forensics; Rootkit Detection;
Citations & Related Records
연도 인용수 순위
  • Reference
1 Becher, M, Dornsief, M., and Klein, C.N., "Firewire: all your memory are belong to us," CansetWest 2005, 2005, (cansecwest.com/core05/2005-firewire-cansecwest.pdf).
2 Amit Singh, "Accessing Kernel Memory on the x86 Version of Mac OS X, 2006", Mac OS X Internals, 2006, (bonus chapter: http://www.osxbook.com/book/ bonus/chapter8/kma/).
3 Apple, Apple Computer, "Mac OS X Security," pp.13, 2009.
4 Apple, Apple Computer, "Mac OS X ABI Mach-O File Format Reference," Mac OS X Reference Library, pp.7-10, Feb. 2009.
5 Intel, Intel, "System Programming Guide, Part1," Intel 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developer Manual Volume 3A, pp116-131, Aug. 2007.
6 Apple Computer, Apple Open Source, http://www.opensource.apple.com/
7 Python, Python Package: macholib, http://pypi.python.org/pypi/macholib/
8 Walters, A, Petroni Jr and N. L, "Volatools: Integrating Volatile Memory Forensics into the Digital Inverstigation Process" Black Hat DC, 2007, (www. blackhat.com/presentations/bh-dc-07/Walters/Paper/bh-dc-07-Walters-WP.pdf)
9 Miller, C. and Dino Dai Zovi, D.A. Mac hacker's handbook, Wiley, pp.342-345, 2009.
10 Erikson, B., "Runtime Kernel Patching on Mac OS X," Defcon 17, 2009, (http: //defcon.org/images/defcon-17/dc-17-presentations/defcon-17-bosse_eriksson-kernel_patching_on_osx.pdf).
11 wowie, "Developing MacOSX Kernel Rootkits," Phrack 66, 2009, (www.phrack. org/issues.html?issue=66&id=16).