Welcome to the NintendoHunt Lab walkthrough, where we'll explore a fascinating cybersecurity investigation scenario. As SOC Analysts, we're tasked with investigating a potential security breach at a company that has noticed unusual network activity on one of their computers. This walkthrough will guide you through the process of memory forensics using Volatility, a powerful memory analysis framework that allows us to examine the contents of RAM captures. Memory forensics is an essential discipline in modern cybersecurity investigations because it reveals evidence that might not be visible through traditional disk forensics. When malware runs on a system, it must exist in memory to execute, making memory analysis crucial for detecting sophisticated threats that might not leave traces on disk. In this lab, we'll work with a memory dump from a potentially compromised Windows system and follow a methodical approach to identify malicious processes, extract hidden data, and understand the attacker's techniques. We'll apply various Volatility plugins to analyze process hierarchies, extract process memory, examine registry artifacts, and explore file system evidence that might reveal the nature of the compromise.
Throughout this walkthrough, we'll cover important concepts in endpoint forensics, including process relationships, memory extraction, registry analysis, and detection of stealth techniques like Alternative Data Streams. We'll also look at browser artifacts to establish a timeline of user activities that might be relevant to the investigation. The techniques demonstrated in this lab represent real-world approaches used by security professionals to investigate breaches and understand attacker methodologies. The lab