Computer Forensics Tools & Techniques Catalog
Forensic Functionality:File Carving
Description:Searching for and reconstructing files based on content, rather than file system metadata. See http://www.forensicswiki.org/wiki/File_Carving, "The Evolution of File Carving" http://digital-assembly.com/technology/research/pubs/ieee-spm-2009.pdf Pal and Memon and "Carving contiguous and fragmented files with fast object validation" dfrws.org/2007/proceedings/p2-garfinkel.pdf Garfinkel for more information.
Technical Parameters: Tool host OS / runtime environment Supported file types Custom file types Carving boundaries Supported file carving methods File viewer/file preview
N/A N/A Support for adding/defining custom file types N/A N/A N/A
Windows graphics (e.g., jpg, png, bmp, gif) Support for adding/defining custom file types Support for carving on byte boundaries Support for header/footer-based carving - carving files using a distinct header and footer Integrated file viewer/file preview
Linux audio (e.g., mp3, wav, au, wma) Custom file types not supported Support for carving on sector boundaries Support for header/maximum size carving - carving files using a distinct header and maximum file size No integrated file preview/file viewer
Mac video (e.g., mp4, avi, mov, flv) Support for carving on cluster boundaries Support for file structure-based carving - carving files using a certain level of knowledge of the internal structure of file types
documents (e.g., doc, xls, ppt, pdf) Support for carving fragmented files - two or more fragments are reassembled to form the original file
archives (e.g., 7z, bz2, zip, tar) Support for carving with file type validation - carved files are validated using a file type specific validator
MIME (e.g., EML, Mbox)