Virtualization

What is a way to use a system to perform various activities, but leave minimal traces? One might think that any of the available cleaner tools (anyone remember SilentRunners.vbs?) would be the answer, but such tools can be too good, making it clear that something was used to wipe artifacts off of the system, harkening back to one of the adages in my books, that the absence of an artifact is itself an artifact.

Think virtualization. Think plugging in a USB device (thumb drive, iPod, etc.) that contains its own running operating system, along with its own tools and storage area. This isn't something that I've seen a lot of, but in a time when the media is telling us that declines in the economy are leading to increased data theft by departing employees, its something to consider.

Diane Barrett has talked about how virtuatlization affects forensics. When portable virtual environments such as MojoPac or Moka5 are used, the analyst is presented with a whole new set of challenges, as the usual remnants and artifacts (i.e., browser history, Registry settings, etc.) won't be available on the confiscated system. Instead, all artifacts will be on the USB storage device that contains the virtual environment, and only indications of the use of these environments (USBStor and MUICache Registry key entries, etc.) will be found.

So, the days of a simple, straightforward examination are fading into the past. Concerns of data leakage or IP theft just took on another dimension... going from file copying and malware and Trojans to leakage via social networking sites and virtualized environments. What's needed is specialized research and training to keep up with developments.

Resources
PortableUbuntu
Qemu Manager - Manager for Qemu VMs
Running the OLPC Image in Qemu
ReactOS (use Qemu or VMWare)
Run Haiku under Qemu (Haiku is based on BeOS...I added this one for pure kewlness...)
Portable Virtual Privacy Machine
Windows + Qemu + Plan 9 (again...pure kewlness)
OS/2 Warp 4 on Qemu (ok, that's just going for the extra nerd points...)