• International Journal of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.31-40
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• 2016

In this paper, we propose a new anti-forensic method for hiding data in the timestamp of a file in the Windows NTFS filesystem. The main idea of the proposed method is to utilize the 16 least significant bits of the 64 bits in the timestamps. The 64-bit timestamp format represents a number of 100-nanosecond intervals, which are small enough to appear in less than a second, and are not commonly displayed with full precision in the Windows Explorer window or the file browsers of forensic tools. This allows them to be manipulated for other purposes. Every file has $STANDARD_INFORMATION and $FILE_NAME attributes, and each attribute has four timestamps respectively, so we can use 16 bytes to hide data. Without any changes in an original timestamp of "year-month-day hour:min:sec" format, we intentionally put manipulated data into the 16 least significant bits, making the existence of the hidden data in the timestamps difficult to uncover or detect. We demonstrated the applicability and feasibility of the proposed method with a test case.

• Convergence Security Journal
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• v.15 no.7
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• pp.75-84
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• 2015

In an "NTFS Index Record Data Hiding" method messages are hidden by using file names. Windows NTFS file naming convention has some forbidden ASCII characters for a file name. When inputting Hangul with the Roman alphabet, if the forbidden characters for the file name and binary data are used, the codes are convert to a designated unicode point to avoid a file creation error due to unsuitable characters. In this paper, the problem of a file creation error due to non-admittable characters for the file name is fixed, which is used in the index record data hiding method. Using Hangul with Roman alphabet the characters cause a file creation error are converted to an arbitrary unicode point except Hangul and Roman alphabet area. When it comes to binary data, all 256 codes are converted to designated unicode area except an extended unicode(surrogate pairs) and ASCII code area. The results of the two cases, i.e. the Hangul with Roman alphabet case and the binary case, show the applicability of the proposed method.

• Journal of Korea Society of Digital Industry and Information Management
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.73-90
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• 2015

When we apply file commands on files in a directory, the directory as well as the file suffer changes in timestamps of MFT entry. Based on understanding of these changes, this work provides a digital forensic analysis on the timestamp changes of the directory influenced by execution of file commands. NTFS utilizes B-tree indexing structure for managing efficient storage of a huge number of files and fast lookups, which changes an index tree of the directory index when files are operated by commands. From a digital forensic point of view, we try to understand behaviors of the B-tree indexes and are looking for traces of files to collect information. But it is not easy to analyze the directory index entry when the file commands are executed. And researches on a digital forensic about NTFS directory and B-tree indexing are comparatively rare. Focusing on the fact, we present, in this paper, directory timestamp changes after executing file commands including a creation, a copy, a deletion etc are analyzed and a method for finding forensic evidences of a deletion of directory containing files. With some cases, i.e. examples of file copy and file deletion command, analyses on the problem of timestamp changes of the directory are given and the problem of finding evidences of a deletion of directory containging files are shown.

• The Journal of Korea Institute of Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.327-337
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• 2015

This work provides new forensic techinque to a hide message on a directory index in Windows NTFS file system. Behavior characteristics of B-tree, which is apoted to manage an index entry, is utilized for hiding message in slack space of an index record. For hidden message not to be exposured, we use a disguised file in order not to be left in a file name attribute of a MFT entry. To understand of key idea of the proposed technique, we describe B-tree indexing method and the proposed of this work. We show the proposed technique is practical for anti-forensic usage with a real message hiding case using a developed software tool.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.1-8
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• 2012

The NTFS journaling file($LogFile) is used to keep the file system clean in the event of a system crash or power failure. The operation on files leaves large amounts of information in the $LogFile. Despite the importance of a journal file as a forensic evidence repository, its structure is not well documented. The researchers used reverse engineering in order to gain a better understanding of the log record structures of address parts, and utilized the address for identifying object files to gain forensic information.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information Security & Cryptology
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.79-91
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• 2010

In digital forensics, the creation time, last modified time, and last accessed time of a file or folder are important factors that can indicate events that have affected a computer system. The form of the time information varies with the file system, depending on the user's actions such as copy, transfer, or network transport of files. Specific changes of the time information may be of considerable help in analyzing the user's actions in the computer system. This paper analyzes changes in the time information of files and folders for different operations of the NTFS and attempts to reconstruct the user's actions.

• Journal of Korea Society of Digital Industry and Information Management
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.69-79
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• 2015

This research proposes a modified data hiding method to hide data in a slack space of an NTFS index record. The existing data hiding method is for anti-forensics, which uses traces of file names of an index entry in an index record when files are deleted in a direcotry. The proposed method in this paper modifies the existing method to make non-admittable ASCII characters for a file name applicable. By improving the existing method, problems of a file creation error due to non-admittable characters are remedied; including the non-admittable 9 characters (i. e. slash /, colon :, greater than >, less than <, question mark ?, back slash ${\backslash}$, vertical bar |, semi-colon ;, esterisk * ), reserved file names(i. e. CON, PRN, AUX, NUL, COM1~COM9, LPT1~LPT9) and two non-admittable characters for an ending character of the file name(i. e. space and dot). Two results of the two message with non-admittable ASCII characters by keyboard inputs show the applicability of the proposed method.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.23 no.8
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• pp.75-84
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• 2018

In this research, a bit correction technique of data hiding method in timestamp of MFT entry in NTFS file system is proposed. This method is proposed in two ways, depending on the number of bytes of data to hide. A basic data hiding method using a bit correction technique to solve the problems of the conventional 2-byte technique is proposed. In order to increase the capacity of the data, a 3-byte data hiding method using an extended bit correction technique is proposed. The data hiding method in the timestamps is based on the fact that is not revealed in the Windows explorer window and the command prompt window even if any data is hidden in the timestamp area of less than one second. It is shown that the validity of the proposed method through the experimental two cases of the basic data hiding method by the bit correction method and the 3-byte data hiding method by the extended bit correction method.

• Journal of Korea Society of Digital Industry and Information Management
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.11-25
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• 2020

This study proposes a method to manipulate fragmentation of disks by arbitrarily allocating and releasing the status of a disk cluster in the NTFS file system. This method allows experiments to be performed in several studies related to fragmentation problems on disk cluster. Typical applicable research examples include testing the performance of disk defragmentation tools according to the state of fragmentation, establishing an experimental environment for fragmented file carving methods for digital forensics, setting up cluster fragmentation for testing the robustness of data hiding methods within directory indexes, and testing the file system's disk allocation methods according to the various version of Windows. This method suggests how a single file occupies a cluster and presents an algorithm with a flowchart. It raises three tricky problems to solve the method, and we propose solutions to the problems. Experiments for allocating the disk cluster to be fragmented to the maximum extent possible, it then performs a disk defragmentation experiment to prove the proposed method is effective.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.24 no.9
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• pp.51-58
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• 2019

Temporal analysis is very useful and important for digital forensics for reconstructing the timeline of digital events. Forgery of a file's timestamp can lead to inconsistencies in the overall temporal relationship, making it difficult to analyze the timeline in reconstructing actions or events and the results of the analysis might not be reliable. The purpose of the timestamp change is to hide the data in a steganographic way, and the other purpose is for anti-forensics. In both cases, the time stamp change tools are requested to use. In this paper, we propose a classification method based on the behavior of the timestamp change tools. The timestamp change tools are categorized three types according to patterns of the changed timestamps after using the tools. By analyzing the changed timestamps, it can be decided what kind of tool is used. And we show that the three types of the patterns are closely related to API functions which are used to develop the tools.