Conducting Memory Forensics with Volatility

When to Use

• An endpoint has been contained during an active incident and volatile evidence must be preserved
• EDR alerts suggest process injection or fileless malware that only exists in memory
• Encryption keys need to be recovered from a ransomware-infected system before shutdown
• Credential theft (Mimikatz, LSASS dumping) is suspected and evidence must be confirmed
• A rootkit or kernel-level compromise is suspected and disk-based analysis is insufficient

Do not use for analyzing disk images or file system artifacts; use disk forensics tools (Autopsy, FTK) for those tasks.

Prerequisites

• Memory acquisition tool deployed or available: WinPmem, Magnet RAM Capture, DumpIt, or AVML (Linux)
• Volatility 3 installed with Python 3.8+ and required symbol tables
• Sufficient storage for memory dumps (equal to system RAM size, typically 8-64 GB)
• YARA rules for malware detection in memory (Florian Roth's signature-base, custom rules)
• Reference baseline of normal processes and DLLs for the OS version being analyzed
• Chain of custody documentation for evidence handling

Workflow

Step 1: Acquire Memory Image

Capture RAM from the target system using a forensically sound method:

Windows (WinPmem):

winpmem_mini_x64.exe output.raw

Windows (Magnet RAM Capture):

MagnetRAMCapture.exe
# GUI-based, select output path, generates .raw file

Windows (DumpIt):

DumpIt.exe
# Creates memory dump in current directory automatically

Linux (AVML - Acquire Volatile Memory for Linux):

./avml output.lime

Document acquisition metadata:

Acquisition Record:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Target Host:      WKSTN-042
RAM Size:         16 GB
Dump File:        WKSTN-042_20251115_1445.raw
Dump Size:        16,843,612,160 bytes
SHA-256:          a4b3c2d1e5f6...
Acquisition Tool: WinPmem 4.0
Acquired By:      [Analyst Name]
Timestamp:        2025-11-15T14:45:00Z

Step 2: Identify the Operating System and Profile

Volatility 3 automatically identifies the OS, but verify:

# Get system information
vol -f WKSTN-042_20251115_1445.raw windows.info

# Output includes:
# OS: Windows 10 22H2 (Build 19045.3693)
# Kernel Base: 0xf8066c200000
# DTB: 0x1aa000
# Symbols: ntkrnlmp.pdb

Step 3: Analyze Running Processes

Examine the process tree for suspicious activity:

# List all running processes
vol -f memory.raw windows.pslist

# Show process tree (parent-child relationships)
vol -f memory.raw windows.pstree

# Scan for hidden/unlinked processes (rootkit detection)
vol -f memory.raw windows.psscan

# Compare pslist vs psscan to find hidden processes
# Processes in psscan but NOT in pslist may be hidden by rootkits

Key indicators of compromise in process analysis:

• svchost.exe running without -k parameter or with wrong parent (should be services.exe)
• csrss.exe or lsass.exe with abnormal parent process
• Processes with misspelled names (scvhost.exe, lssas.exe)
• Unusual processes spawned by outlook.exe, winword.exe, or excel.exe
• Multiple instances of processes that should be singletons (lsass.exe, smss.exe)

Step 4: Investigate Network Connections

Extract active and recently closed network connections:

# List all network connections
vol -f memory.raw windows.netscan

# Focus output fields:
# Offset    Proto  LocalAddr     LocalPort  ForeignAddr    ForeignPort  State     PID  Owner
# 0xe10...  TCPv4  10.1.5.42     49721     185.220.101.42  443         ESTAB     3847  update.exe

Cross-reference suspicious connections with the process tree to identify C2 communications. Look for:

• Connections to external IPs from unexpected processes
• High port numbers connecting to port 443/80 from non-browser processes
• Connections from svchost.exe or system processes to external IPs

Step 5: Detect Process Injection and Malware

Use malfind to identify injected code and memory-resident malware:

# Detect injected code in processes
vol -f memory.raw windows.malfind

# Output shows:
# PID  Process       Start      End        Tag  Protection  Hexdump/Disassembly
# 3847 explorer.exe  0x2a10000  0x2a14000  VadS PAGE_EXECUTE_READWRITE
# MZ header detected - injected PE

# Dump suspicious process memory
vol -f memory.raw windows.memmap --pid 3847 --dump

# List DLLs loaded by a suspicious process
vol -f memory.raw windows.dlllist --pid 3847

# Scan memory with YARA rules

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