Welcome to the DeepDive Lab walkthrough, where we'll explore the fascinating world of memory forensics to investigate a compromised system. Memory forensics has become an indispensable technique in modern cybersecurity investigations, allowing analysts to examine the volatile memory (RAM) of a system to detect sophisticated threats that might evade traditional disk-based forensics. In this lab, we'll analyze a memory dump from a compromised machine using the Volatility Framework, a powerful open-source memory forensics tool. Memory analysis is valuable because malware often operates exclusively in memory to avoid leaving traces on disk, employs anti-forensic techniques to hide its presence, and may utilize advanced evasion methods that can only be detected by examining the system's RAM. Our investigation will focus on identifying and analyzing suspicious processes, understanding how malware manipulates system structures to remain hidden, examining code injection techniques, and ultimately determining the nature of the compromise.
Throughout this walkthrough, we'll utilize various Volatility plugins to systematically analyze the memory dump, starting with basic profiling and gradually moving to more advanced techniques that reveal the sophisticated nature of the attack. We'll explore how attackers use techniques like Direct Kernel Object Manipulation (DKOM) to hide processes, examine memory allocation patterns that might indicate malicious activity, and identify injected code that reveals the true capabilities of the malware. This hands-on lab will provide practical experience with real-world memory forensics techniques used by blue team analysts when responding to advanced persistent threats. By the end of this walkthrough,